Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to this lesson on Christianity.

I'm Miss Kendrick.

And I've been teaching all of the lessons in this Christian beliefs unit if you've seen any of the other ones.

Hopefully you're not looking at my face and thinking "Oh dear, not her again." In this lesson, we are going to be looking at the story of the crucifixion that's recorded in the Bible.

We're going to look at the meaning of the story of the crucifixion for Christians.

And we're also going to practise using some quotations in examination questions, because this is something that's going to be really useful for the GCSE.

Before we start looking at these stories in the Bible, it's really helpful for us to look at an overview of the Christian story.

Now, I've taught a little bit before about whether Christians will see this story as literal history or whether they'll see it as something symbolic and there might be disagreement from historians and things like that.

Whether these stories are literally true as they're recorded in the Bible.

But it's really helpful to look at this overall story because it gives context to these Christian beliefs and beliefs like the crucifixion have a lot more meaning when they're seen in that overall story.

So if you've taken part in some of the previous lessons in this unit, we will have looked at the creation story.

And this belief that is recorded in Genesis, or comes from Genesis, much better phrasing, and that God created the world and it was good.

And that this world was corrupted by the sin from Adam and Eve, which is known as "The Fall" and many Christians believe that this sin original sin is passed down to all humans and explains the tendency that humans have to do bad things.

So whether or not those stories are seen as literal or symbolic, they give an explanation of why humanity is in the state it is in today.

Now the next part of the story for Christians is the belief that God became incarnate.

So He took on flesh in the form of Jesus.

And that's when we looked at the nativity story and also the stories about the things that the Bible says Jesus did in his life.

For example, miracles and teachings and His actions, which Christians today will see as an example of how to live.

Now, before we look at the story of the crucifixion, it's really important that we make sure we already know some key words.

I've already mentioned quite a few as I've gone through that recap.

So what we're going to do is you're going to pause the slides and I've got some key words that I want you to see if you can define.

Now, if you've not taken part in any previous lessons, don't worry.

I would give it a go.

If you don't know them, it's not the end of the world.

I'm about to tell you the answers and then we'll spend some time learning them.

So if you don't know them now, hopefully you will know some of them by the end of the lesson.

So pause the slide and test yourself on these key definitions.

I wonder how you did on those definitions.

I hope do you got down your corrections in full cause they're going to be really important to learn.

Now, regardless of whether you got them all right, or you got them wrong, what we're going to do now is a look, cover, write, check, repeat task.

And this is because it's really helpful for us to get those definitions in our memory and not just so that we know them when we thought about them for awhile but so they're there really snappy so that when you're writing an assessment or something like that, you can pull them out of your brain nice and quickly.

Now this task look, cover, write check, repeat often isn't a very popular, but it works.

And I sometimes use it myself when I need to learn something new.

I mean, one of the reasons why it works is because you are forcing your brain to try and remember something, and then you're trying to write it down and you're making corrections.

It's this process up here, the thinking hard part that makes you remember those definitions.

So sometimes I have students say, "well, I did cover, write, check, repeat, but it didn't work for me.

I still don't know it." And then I look at their work and they've copied out their definitions, the number of times I've asked, beautifully with no mistakes and I give it back to them and I go, "well, you didn't do it properly because if you've done it properly, you would've made mistakes." This is not just about copying it out perfectly.

This is about looking at it, try to write it down going, "Oh, you know, I forgotten the second part." "Oh, I'll have to look back.

Right.

I'm making my correction now then try again." So actually, if you've done it properly, there should be loads of mistakes in, and hopefully fewer mistakes as you go through your repetitions.

So with that pep talk in mind, I'm going to get you to spend some time doing look, cover, write, check, repeat on a couple of key definitions for this unit.

Okay.

Well done for doing that task.

I assure you it's really, really worthwhile.

Now, if we think back to what Jesus was doing, when He was travelling and preaching, you may wonder how this man who, well, all the stories about Him, are Him doing nice things like healing people and telling people to be nice to each other.

You might question how He ended up being crucified in an absolutely horrific way.

Now to understand this, we need to know a little bit more about the context that Jesus was living in.

Remember that Jesus was Jewish and the main leaders in Judaism at the time were the temple priests and the Pharisees were also very important.

And these were religious leaders who were very pious.

That meant that they followed the Jewish laws very, very carefully.

The other thing we need to know is that at the time the Jewish people were waiting for a Messiah.

Now the Messiah was a special king promised by God who would restore the Jewish religion and restore the land and have a kingdom that would last forever.

Now, when Jesus was alive, the Jews were particularly looking for this Messiah because they had been taken over by the Roman Empire and so they were not governing themselves.

There'd been several rebellions against the Roman, the battle against the Roman soldiers, which have mostly been put down quite brutally, if you know your Roman history.

And so the Jews were really waiting for this promised king who would come and get rid of the Romans and restore the land.

Now Jesus had been travelling around and teaching and gaining followers and doing miraculous signs.

And many Jewish people were hoping that He was the Messiah, but lots of the Jewish leaders at the time were not very happy with Jesus.

There are a few reasons for this.

Some of them thought He didn't have any authority because He wasn't trained in the traditional way.

Others were worried about Him because they were in fear that they would lose that power when the people were supporting Jesus.

And other people, other Jewish leaders were concerned about his teachings.

They were worried because Sometimes Jesus said things that made it sound like He was God and for Jewish people, that would be blasphemy.

That would be speaking against God because they were monotheists.

They only believe in one God.

So we've got lots and lots of different things going on here in this historical context.

And before we go on to the next part of the story, we're just going to pause so that you can answer some of the questions on what I've just told you so that you've got it in mind as we through the last week of Jesus' life.

Okay.

So the first day we're going to look at is Palm Sunday.

Now this is the first day of Holy Week.

Holy Week is part of the Easter celebrations that Christian celebrates today.

When I say parts of it, Easter isn't actually part of Holy Week.

It is the first day after Holy Week.

But for now, we're just going to look at the story.

So in this picture, we can see Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and you can see people waving palm leaves and people laying down their coats for His donkey to walk over.

Now, like I said, lots of the people were expecting Jesus to be this Messiah, to ride into Jerusalem, on a white stallion and overthrow the Romans.

And Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey.

Now this is a really important symbol for Christians because a donkey is a very humble animal.

It shows the belief that Jesus was not acting like He was more important than anybody else.

And actually He's acting against this idea that He's going to be this soldier riding into Jerusalem to go to battle with the Romans by coming in peacefully on a donkey.

So as Jesus rode into Jerusalem, the people are excited.

They think He's going to be the Messiah.

They're raving palm branches, which are a sign of victory.

So they were used when people were returning victorious from battle and they're shouting "Hosanna!" which means Praise God.

And they're taking off their clothes, lying them on the ground for the donkey to walk on as a sign of respect.

So they're receiving Jesus like a king coming triumphant from a battle.

So today when Christians celebrate this story and remember this story on Palm Sunday, which is the first day of Holy Week, Christians will often give out palm crosses, or they might wave palm leaves and shout "Hosanna!" and things like that to remember this story.

Now, all of the support from the people unsettled many of Jewish leaders, and the Bible records that they started trying to find ways to kill Jesus.

Later in the week, Jesus also criticises the temple leaders for allowing money changes to be in the Temple.

They're essentially making money from people.

And again, this would have further angered those people in charge.

So we're going to pause.

You've got a few questions to answer.

I want you to tell us some of the story, and then we're going to look at the next part.

So the next part of the story is Maundy Thursday and quite a lot happens in this day or in this story.

So I'm just going to go through some key things that are really important for you to know.

Firstly, the disciples and Jesus have the last supper.

And this is important because lots of Christian practises come from this story.

So at the last supper, Jesus breaks bread with His disciples and He says, "This is my body given for you, and this is my blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins." And this is where the Christian practise of communion comes from because Jesus says, "Do this in remembrance of Me." And He's also foreshadowing His death.

He's saying, "This is my blood poured out." And it's saying, He says that His blood poured out is for the forgiveness of sins.

And this would link to the Jewish idea of sacrifice that animals would be sacrificed.

Their blood would be poured out for the sins of the people.

So lots of very important things going on there.

Another thing that happened on Maundy Thursday according to the Biblical accounts is that Jesus washed His disciples feet.

Now you might think that's a bit of a strange thing because that's not something that we tend to do in our culture, but it was very normal in Jesus' culture for a servant to wash people's feet when they entered someone's home cause people would have been walking around in the streets where it was smelly and dusty and they're stepping in animal poo and things like that.

So often when they got to someone's home a servant would come and wash their feet, and it was probably the job that servants tried to avoid doing the most.

It was probably the lowliest servant who had to do it because it would have been a pretty grim job.

And so when Jesus starts to wash His disciples feet, they're surprised and Peter doesn't want Him to because Jesus is taking on this lowly role, this lowly position.

And He's been their leader the whole time.

But again, this is a really important part of Christian understanding of Jesus and who He is and what He came to do.

Here, Jesus is being a servant king.

He is acting like the least among people and raising up other people around Him, which really fits with some of Jesus' actions that we've looked at in previous lessons like on the story of Zacchaeus.

And then the thing that happens on Maundy Thursday is after eating with His disciples, Jesus goes to the garden of Gethsemane to pray and He invites His disciples to go with Him.

The Biblical account says that Jesus prayed in anguish.

So it suggests that Jesus knew that He was going to die.

And He even says to God, "Can this cup of suffering be passed from me, but may Your will be done." So He's showing real humanity here.

And Christians believe that Jesus was fully human.

So He would have suffered on the cross in the same way that anybody else would.

And here He's showing fear and concern and anguish over what He is going to do.

So again, really important Christian beliefs here, there's beliefs that Jesus was fully human, that Jesus knew He was going to die and that Jesus was willing to do God's will.

Now it is in the garden of Gethsemane in which Jesus is arrested.

He's betrayed by His disciple Judas with a kiss.

So that is how Judas identifies Him to the soldiers that he's brought to arrest Jesus.

And Jesus is taken and has a trial at nights.

And lots of false witnesses are brought to speak against Him.

At the time, Jews were not able to crucify anyone themselves under Roman law.

They weren't allowed to kill people.

So they had to take Jesus to Pontius Pilate, who was the Roman governor.

It says in the Gospel accounts that Pilate could not find any reason to kill Jesus, but the crowd started to shout, "Crucify him!" The same crowd that welcomed Jesus at the beginning of the week on Palm Sunday.

So Pilate washes his hands to show that he has no responsibility over Jesus' life and sends Jesus to be crucified.

We're going to pause there and then I'm going to to tell you a bit more about Good Friday after you have answered the questions.

So, Good Friday is a bit of a strange name, isn't it? For the day on which Christians believe that God was crucified.

But this links to the belief that is due to Jesus' crucifixion, that humans can be saved from sin.

And that's why it's called Good Friday.

Now crucifixion, was a horrendously brutal way to die.

People would've often be beaten and flogged, some whipped before they were crucified.

They might carry their own cross, which is what happens to Jesus in the Gospel accounts.

They were often nailed or sometimes tied to the cross and they would be left out in the hot sun.

They may have been stripped naked, and this is what was done to the worst criminals in the Roman Empire.

And so anybody walking past would just be disgusted by the people who were being crucified.

It was an incredibly shameful way to die as well as being incredibly painful.

Now we can see quite a few things in this picture.

So obviously we have Jesus crucified, but there's two things that you may not have noticed immediately.

Firstly, above His head on the cross, that is a sign.

Now this is a sign that the Gospel account says, Pontius Pilate put on the cross or ordered to be put on the cross, which said, "This is Jesus, king of the Jews." written in several of the local languages.

And the Accounts say that the Jewish leaders objected to this.

They said, "No.

You should write.

'He claimed He was the king of the Jews.

'" but Pilate said, "Well, I've written what I've written." He didn't want to change it.

So this thing's to Christian idea, that Jesus was really the king of the Jews.

He really was this promised king or Messiah.

And another thing that shows that belief is that Jesus wears a crown of thorns.

So He is crowned like a king would be, but it is a crown of suffering.

So Jesus had been beaten and flogged, to say He would have been very weak by the time He was put on the cross and He dies quicker than other people who were being crucified with Him.

And the Gospel accounts says that when He died, darkness covered the land.

And at that moment it says that the curtain in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Now, this is a model of the Temple.

The Jewish Temple at the time of Jesus.

It's not the whole Temple.

Just to be clear, it's just a part of it.

Now what you can see here where the green arrow is pointing is a veil or a curtain.

And behind that curtain was something called the Holy of Holies.

This is where the Ark of the Covenant, which had important things in it like the 10 commandments and was, and where the Jews believed God's presence rested among His people.

This part of the Temple was considered so, so Holy that no one really went in it.

So the High Priest would go in once a year and that would be it.

And this was because God is seen as so good and so powerful that sinful humans couldn't enter His presence.

So there's this barrier, this veil of separation.

Now the gospel story says that at the moment of Jesus' death, that veil, that curtain was torn in two.

And this shows the Christian belief that Jesus' death made it possible for God and humans to be in a right relationship again, to be at one again.

And this is something called atonement, which we are going to look at in more detail in a later lesson.

Back to the story of Good Friday, the Jews did not want the bodies on crosses to be left up for too long because the next day was the Sabbath and Jews could not do any or still don't do any work on the Sabbath day.

So the Roman guards, they go around and they break the legs of the other people who are being crucified so that they would die more quickly.

But when they get to Jesus, they discovered that He is already dead.

So instead one soldier takes a spear and he thrusts it into Jesus' side and you can see in that painting a mark on his side where the spear would have gone and blood and water comes out.

Now this shows the belief that Jesus really did die on the cross.

He wasn't in a fate or anything like that.

Christians believe He really died.

And so one of Jesus' followers, a man named Joseph asks Pilate if he could bury Him.

Jesus was taken down from the cross and His body was hastily prepared for burial.

So it wasn't prepared properly with all of the perfumes and things that were used to embalm bodies at the time.

And His body was placed in the tomb.

A heavy stone was rolled in front of it, along with a Roman guard who was set, along with a Roman guard.

And this was because of the belief that many of Jesus' followers had, that He would rise from the dead.

So the Jewish leaders and the Romans were concerned that the disciples would come and steal His body and then claim that He had risen.

So these guards are sent to guard the tomb.

So we're going to go on to our main task in this lesson, you're going to need to pause the slides and go onto the worksheet.

It's going to ask you some slightly trickier questions about what you've learned today, so remember to read the questions carefully.

Think back to what I've told you of the story, and you're also going to have some reading to help you.

Right.

Well done for all of your hard work on those questions.

Again, I hope you've gotten done your feedback in full because it's really helpful for later on.

but hey, I've got two Bible verses and these express two really important Christian beliefs about Jesus' crucifixion and why He died.

So in pink, we've got John 3:16 and this verse is famous because many Christians would say that it summarises up the gospel.

Gospel means good news.

So that good news about Jesus' death and the promise of salvation that Christians believe in.

It says, "For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not die, but have eternal life." So this expresses the Christian belief that if you believe in Jesus, then you will have eternal life.

You will go to heaven.

The one in purple says, and this is from the story of the last supper.

"Jesus took a piece of bread, 'Take an eat it,' He said; 'this is my body.

' Then He took a cup, gave thanks to God, and gave it to them.

'Drink it, all of you,' He said, 'this is my blood poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins.

'" So again, it shows that Christian belief that Jesus' death was a sacrifice and made it possible for their sins to be forgiven.

You guys are going to pause the video.

You've got a task to do.

And then we're going to have a look at some exam questions.

Alright.

So we're going to look at a couple of explain questions and it says here, refer to scripture in your answer which is great because you've already written down some verses, the ones I just asked you to do.

So as a reminder, we are going to answer questions that are going to fit with a few different exam boards.

Explain questions will be slightly different for each exam board, so you need to ask your teacher which exam board you are sitting.

This question above best fits with AQA and Edexcel.

You might need to write longer 'explain' questions in Eduqas and WJEC.

And the style might look slightly different for OCR.

So those are just things keep in mind, but it's always helpful for you to practise explaining these beliefs.

So what you're going to do is you're going to pause the video and see if you can answer this question.

Okay.

Before we finish today, we're going to do some quick fire questions just to help you remember everything later on.

please do.

I mean, you don't, you might have to point at the screen or sorry, You might have to shout out loud, but at least points at the screen, you need to be thinking about what the answers are because these questions really help get this information into your head.

So the first one, which word means 'to take on flesh' and shows the Christian belief that Jesus is God in human form.

One, two, three.

The incarnation.

which word means 'to be saved from sin and its consequences.

' Salvation.

Christians believed Jesus just appeared to die.

True or false? False.

All of the Jews thought that Jesus was the Messiah.

True or false? False.

And this is where we get this split between Christianity and Judaism because after Jesus' death, those followers of Jesus starts getting known as Christians.

Whereas those Jews who didn't believe in Jesus continued to be known as Jews.

Why do Christians believe Jesus was crucified? To take on punishment for sin.

Who do Christians believe that Jesus died for? All people.

What day do the Gospel accounts say Jesus washed His disciples feet? Maundy Thursday.

What day did the Gospel accounts say Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey? Palm Sunday.

What day do the Gospel accounts say Jesus was a crucified.

Good Friday.

So thank you so much for taking part in today's lesson.

Next step is to complete that summary quiz.

So do your best on it.

It's really helpful for you to help you remember what we've looked at for next lesson.

Thank you so much for all of your hard work and hopefully I'll see you next time.