The Crucifixion
THE CRUCIFIXION
LUKE 23:27-38
The eternal Son of God was about to be separated from his Father. Yet even here, Jesus prays.
It has been suggested that the place of the crucifixion could have been the skull-shaped knoll, north of the city, not far from the Damascus Gate, known as Gordon’s Calvary. Gashes in the rock-face represent eye-sockets and the shattered features of a skull. The Jordanians built a bus-terminal hard against the knoll where battered vehicles moved in and out, and crowds rushed for seats or hurried away. The traditional site, under the Holy Sepulchre Church, has to be sure some archaeological support, but whatever the exact location, at some such place the most significant event of history was enacted, and that fact must at least he conceded by all. Vast issues were decided at the Place of the Skull. Notice the dignity and the restraint of Luke’s narrative the physical horrors of crucifixion are passed over.
But at Calvary the issues of eternity also found their climax and consummation. The story has only to be read in its simplicity to see the first lesson of the cross. Could man’s rebellion against God and good be more shatteringly demonstrated than it was that day? The brutal soldiery, the leaders of religion mocking the spectacle of despair and agony, cruelty which no beast would practice upon beast, were a spectacle which a world inured enough to blood and horror was never to forget. Here is man when sin has done its worst with him.
What was not yet so clear was that here too was God. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” Some were soon to see this scene with other eyes, for here was the spectacle of God himself involved in human sin. Lord, make us understand it.
Notes 23:27-32: Luke gives a large place to women, and their presence in the story both illustrates his sources and throws light on the early church. 23:27: the women may have come to offer drugs (Proverbs 31:6). 23:34: the Lord asks forgiveness not so much for the soldiers as for the people at large; forty years of opportunity for repentance were given. 23:38: the varied versions of the superscription result from its being written in three languages. If Matthew’s version is turned into Latin, Luke’s into Greek and John’s into Aramaic, lines of nearly equal length result.