The Physical Death of Jesus Christ: A Weighty Article I Found on Easter Monday

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
As I published my last blog, I found myself wrestling today with something that has been sitting quietly beneath the surface
whether I am truly delighted in by the Lord.
Not just loved in a theological sense.
Not just forgiven in principle.
But genuinely delighted in.
It’s a question that doesn’t always come loudly.
It lingers.
In the background of prayer.
In moments of reflection.
In the quiet spaces where honesty has nowhere to hide.
And today, in the middle of that wrestle, I came across something unexpected.
A medical article.
“On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” published in 1986 by the American Medical Association.
And I can’t shake the feeling that I was led to it.

Read the article here:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/403315


Because it didn’t speak in devotional language.
It didn’t try to comfort.
It simply laid out the physical reality of the cross.
Jesus did not just die.
His body torn open.
Blood loss already overwhelming before He even reached the cross.
Then came crucifixion.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Every breath requiring Him to push upward against nails driven through His hands and feet only to collapse again.
Again.
And again.
Until His body could no longer continue.
And sitting with that today
something shifted.
Because the cross is something I’ve always known.
But today, it felt like something I had to actually face.
Scripture says:
“He was pierced for our transgressions…
crushed for our iniquities…”
And I’ve understood that.
I’ve believed that.
But today, in the middle of wrestling with whether I am truly delighted in by God…
this reality confronted me in a different way.
Because that level of suffering
was not distant.
Not abstract.
Not symbolic.
It was endured for me.
Not for a perfected version of me.
Not for a version that has overcome everything.
But for the version that still struggles.
Still wrestles.
Still questions.
And maybe that’s where something begins to settle.
Because if the cross reveals anything clearly
it’s that God’s posture toward me is not reluctant.
Not distant.
Not obligated.
It is intentional.
Today didn’t give me answers.
It didn’t resolve everything I’ve been feeling.
But it did leave me with something steady.
A quiet awareness that maybe the question isn’t whether He delights in me
but whether I’m willing to believe what the cross has already revealed.
And for now
that’s enough to sit with.

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