The insignificance of Jesus' crucifixion

Visual arts relish the crucifixion of Jesus: the courtroom drama of the trials, enormous crowds, the potential for enormous crosses silhouetted against a darkening sky - there can be moments of bathos too: who can forget the portly and aging John Wayne as the centurion at the foot of the cross in The Greatest Story Ever Told drawling "Surely this was the Son of Gaaaaaad"?

A lot of this visual drama may be mis-placed.  Crucifixions were commonplace enough in the early first century.  Following the death of Herod in 4 BC there were outbreaks of revolt throughout Judea. Varus, the Roman legate of Syria took two legions and brutally pacified the country, particularly in Galilee:

Upon this, Varus sent a part of his army into the country, to seek out those that had been the authors of the revolt; and when they were discovered, he punished some of them that were most guilty, and some he dismissed: now the number of those that were crucified on this account were two thousand.  (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 17.10.10)

Commonplace, and perhaps in easy public view: "those who passed by hurled insults at him" (Matthew 27:39). 

Odilon Redon's painting The Crucifixion strips out much of the over-dramatisation, depicting a moment of strange everyday intimacy which would only be possible without theatrics.  Mary, Jesus' mother, and his disciple John are shown by the cross in a painting of this moment:

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, "Woman, here is your son", and to the disciple, "Here is your mother". From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.  (John 19:26-27)

The picture is not prescriptive; the lack of detail both leaves space for the imagination to play but also suggests, very subtly, something other-worldly.  For me this picture achieves with greater credibility something that more over-dramatic portrayals strive for but fail to deliver: the way that an ordinary public execution in a culture in which these were commonplace brought something heavenly into the lived experience of Christians.