Day 6: Sacrifice
- Published Apr 11, 2020
“They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull)” (Mark 15:22).
It’s Friday morning, 9 A.M. Killing time in Jerusalem.
Outside the Damascus Gate is a road and on the other side of the road is a flat area near the spot where the prophet Jeremiah is buried. Up above you can see a rocky outcropping that, if studied at a certain angle, looks like a skull. Eroded into the limestone are two sockets for the eyes, a place for the nose and maybe a place for the mouth.
Skull Hill, they called it. Golgotha.
A raucous crowd has gathered to watch three men die. As time passes, all eyes fix on the center cross. The man hanging there is not like the other two. They are criminals, and they sound like criminals as they scream and curse. The man in the middle is also dying, but not like the other two.
This is Day 5 of Eight Days that Changed the World. The word today is sacrifice. Though wicked men crucified him, Jesus is not dying against his will. He lays down his life for the very men who put him on the cross.But not just for them.
He died for you and me.
Consider these three words from Mark 15:25, “They crucified him.” The word “they” speaks of the people who crucified our Lord. The “they” included the Romans, the Jews, and it includes you and me. We all had our share in the death of Jesus.
The word “crucified” speaks of the painful death he suffered. Crucifixion was the ultimate punishment in that day. It represented the world’s final judgment on Jesus: “This man deserves to die.” Though he had done no wrong, they crucified him anyway.
The word “him” speaks of the person who died that day. This was no ordinary man. As the centurion cried out when Jesus died, “Surely, this was the Son of God!”
I heard a story about a man who visited Golgotha and the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. Overwhelmed, he began to weep. “Have you ever been here before?” someone asked. “Oh, yes,” he replied. “I was here 2000 years ago.”
The song Were You There? asks a question we ought to ponder today:
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Lord Jesus, we tremble to think of what you endured for our salvation. May we never be ashamed of Jesus or what he did for us. Amen.
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