Dear Catherine, On rereading your post, I think it deserves a better response. I can appreciate your view but disagree. It is shocking, I agree. However, to visualize the scene, the fact, in its stark  and vivid reality provides us with a learning moment regarding the depth of Jesus' Incarnation into our reality. The act of faith becomes so much more real and astounding when the scene is rendered real in its sad brutality.  The utter pain of a mother experiencing her son's brutal execution.  The treatment of the master; the utter failure of the master's mission.  The immensity of the resurrection to follow. Jesus really was at that point a cadaver, nailed to was little more than a dead tree.