Jesus’ Physical Experience of His Passion — Part 5: Touch

04-06-2025Weekly ReflectionJen Arnold, M.A.

We are nearing the end of our Lenten journey and headed toward Holy Week. We have been reflecting on how Jesus might have experienced his final hours from the Last Supper through his crucifixion, using each of his five senses, thus far covering sight, hearing, taste, and smell. Let's now explore and meditate on what Jesus experienced through his sense of touch. While this is arguably the most effortless sense to imagine, it is still helpful to tune out the other senses and focus on what Jesus was feeling through his entire body on his path to Calvary, even just to begin appreciating what he endured for our salvation.

At the Last Supper, Jesus has gathered with his disciples in the upper room, knowing his hour had come. In addition to instituting the Eucharist, he took this meal as an opportunity to demonstrate the profound humility and service required to be a follower of his. Jesus, their Lord and Teacher, kneels before his disciples to wash their feet. His hands, calloused from years as a carpenter, dip into the cool water, then gently cradle Peter’s dusty feet. The roughness of the apostle’s skin meets the tenderness of Christ’s touch, a gesture that prefigures the washing away of sin. Jesus can feel the dust and the grit fade away as he cleanses each of their feet, one by one. As he dries their feet with a soft towel, they experience his touch of love and service one last time.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus falls to his knees to pray. The ground beneath him is hard and covered with roots and leaves and stones, pressing into his skin, which he may have hardly noticed as he wrestled with the agony in his soul. Perhaps he reaches down to clutch the earth, fingers digging into the soil as he asks his Father to let this cup pass from him while resolving to do his will. As his sweat turns to drops of blood, he would have felt them trickle down his face before dropping onto the ground below him. Perhaps, at this point, he could feel the oppressive weight of our sins already pressing down upon him. Judas’ kiss of betrayal would have been the most contradictory feeling. This kiss was a gentle gesture on his cheek, a gesture reserved as an expression of affection, but now it was transformed into a mark of pain and abandonment. Jesus’ hands, which had healed the sick, fed the hungry, and embraced the marginalized, were now bound with coarse ropes which chafed against his wrists as he was callously arrested. As Jesus is brought before the Sanhedrin, then to Pilate, and finally to Herod, he is subjected to a series of humiliations. Soldiers grab hold of him, their rough hands gripping his arms and shoulders with violence, jerking him in different directions. The hands of his mockers strike his bruised and battered body. Perhaps he feels the mob members’ saliva hit his face as they spit at him.

The scourging at the pillar marked the beginning of Jesus’ most intense physical suffering. Bound to a pillar by his hands, the skin of his back is exposed, and the leather whips studded with bits of bone or metal begin to strike him. The searing sting is immediate and relentless, each lash tearing open his flesh, exposing his muscles and bones. He would have felt his warm blood run down his back as it pooled at his feet. After the brutal scourging, there would be no relief as the soldiers twisted thorns into the shape of a crown and cruelly pressed it into his head. Each thorn pierced sharply into his scalp, causing pain in his head and blood to trickle down his face, the face once touched by his Blessed Mother’s gentle caresses.

As Jesus took up his cross, the rough wood would have scraped against his already lacerated back, intensifying his agony. He would have felt the weight of the crossbeam pressing down on his shoulders. St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote in his works that he prayed and asked Jesus what wound was most painful and caused him the most suffering in his passion. Jesus responded, “I had on My Shoulder, while I bore My Cross on the Way of Sorrows, a grievous Wound, which was more painful than the others and which is not recorded by men.” It must have been excruciating, as his cross rubbed and dug into that painful wound the entire length of the Via Dolorosa. Each time he falls on the hard ground, stones jab his knees, and his hands scrape the dirt as he catches himself and the cross crashes down on his back. Simon of Cyrene lifts the burden briefly as he is pulled from the crowd to assist Jesus, giving him the slightest bit of relief. Veronica’s veil touches his face, soft against the blood and sweat, and he leaves his image there, a tender moment amid the brutality.

At Calvary, Jesus is stripped of His garments, reopening His wounds as the fabric tears away from the dried blood. As he is laid upon the cross, the rough wood would have scratched roughly against his torn back, intensifying the searing pain throughout his body. Jesus is nailed to the cross, his hands and feet pierced by iron spikes. The sensation of the nails driving through his flesh is unimaginable. As the cross is lifted and dropped into place, the sudden jolt would have sent waves of pain through Jesus’ body. Already weakened by the scourging and the beatings, his body now bears the weight of the world’s sin and the excruciating pain of crucifixion. For three hours, darkness covers the whole land as Jesus approaches death. He is likely cold and shivering as the wind blows over his body drenched with sweat and blood. Each breath becomes increasingly difficult as his chest cavity fills with fluid. Jesus lets out a cry — one of both pain and yet victory — as he knows his mission is accomplished and he finally surrenders his spirit to the Father. Then, at that moment, all the pain and agony vanish, and he experiences complete relief in his body as well as his soul, knowing what his redemptive work would mean for each of us. A sign of this relief is then physically manifested, when shortly after Jesus breathes his last, a soldier pierces his side with a lance and the buildup of blood and water gush forth as a fountain of mercy for us.

While meditating on the pain of Jesus’ passion and crucifixion is not pleasant, doing so allows us to appreciate the physical reality of his suffering more deeply. Every moment, from the Last Supper to his last breath on the cross, was filled with tactile experiences that remind us of the lengths our Savior went to redeem us. He felt every scourge, every thorn, every rough step, every nail for you and me. As you go about your week, remember how Jesus washed his disciples' feet and make it a point to do simple acts of service for others, noting the sensations you feel. Also, notice moments of discomfort in your body — whether by choice (e.g., fasting) or not — and offer them up for a soul in purgatory without complaint. Finally, contemplate how only Jesus can transform what was once painful into something beautiful, as the wounds inflicted upon him in violence are now glorified in heaven, and as ours will be too, one day.