There was a bare hill outside the walls of Jerusalem where men were taken to be put to death. In their language it was called Golgotha, or “a place of a skull”, as that was its shape, and such a hill can still be seen there. It was to that hill that the soldiers took Jesus to be crucified. which you all may know was done by nailing the hands and feet of the person to a cross or tree or pole, and leaving them to hang there in great agony until dead. To tell that such was the death of the Lord Jesus is the saddest of all stories. He was the Creator, the giver of life, yet put to death by men in the most cruel way they could plan.
These words were placed over His cross,
“This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”
Those men had not believed the writings from God that One would come to die for sin, God had said that sins could not be forgiven but by bloodshed. Jesus, the Son of God was the One to be the sacrifice:
“He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”
It was the third hour (Mark 15:2525And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. (Mark 15:25)) of the morning, or nine o’clock, that the Lord Jesus was put on the Cross, and at the sixth hour, noon, the sun was hidden and all the land was dark for three hours until the ninth hour. During that time Jesus cried out words written long before,
“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” The answer to that question was written in the Psalm: “But Thou art holy.” Psalms 22:33But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. (Psalm 22:3). Because God was holy He could not help or free His Son while He took the punishment for our sins. At the ninth hour, three p. m., Jesus called with a loud voice, showing He still had His strength, and gave up His life, “yielding up His Spirit.” Sins had been suffered for.
There were earthquakes and the rocks broken, and the veil of the temple torn in two when Jesus gave up His life. That veil was a very precious thing to the people, yet it was what kept all, except the High Priest once a year, from the inner room. That was torn, not from the bottom as a person would do, but from the top to the bottom. This taught them that the way which shut them from God’s presence, was at an end; Christ, by His death, was the “new and living way” to come to God (Heb. 10:2020By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; (Hebrews 10:20)).
It is for each of us to ask ourselves, was it for my sins the Lord Jesus so suffered? One of the disciples later wrote,
ML 11/28/1943