The humiliation of crucifixion

Fr. Ronald Rolheiser has a powerful meditation for Good Friday. 

...Interestingly there is a striking parallel between what crucifixion did to the human body and what nature itself often does to the human body through old age, cancer, dementia, AIDS and diseases such as Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's, Huntington's and other sicknesses that humiliate the body before killing it. They expose publicly what is most vulnerable inside of our humanity. They shame the body.

Why? What is the connection between this type of pain and the glory of Easter Sunday? Why is it, as the Gospels say, "necessary to first suffer in this manner so as to enter into glory"?

Because, paradoxically, a certain depth of soul can only be attained through a certain depth of humiliation. How and why is this so? It isn't easy to articulate rationally but we can understand this through experience: ...