Today is the first day on our 10 Days to the Cross journey. One of the LifeGate lead team will be posting a reflection on the crucifixion of Jesus once a day between now and Good Friday. Our goal is to help you to focus on Jesus and what he did for you on the cross almost two thousand years ago.
I wanted to begin our journey today by sharing some about the setting of the crucifixion. The Bible gives us a number of clues about where Jesus was crucified. All four gospels record that he was crucified outside of the Jerusalem at a place called Golgotha. The Gospel of John tells us that where Jesus was crucified there was a garden containing an new, unused tomb. Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would be buried in a wealthy area.
In November of 2011 I was able to go to Israel on a 10 day tour / working trip with my Dad. The highlight of that trip for me, and really one of the highlights of my life, was a visit to the Garden Tomb. The Garden Tomb is one probable site of Jesus' burial. It lies next to a rock outcropping which is in the shape of a skull. It is outside the ancient city walls. And it is next to the Damascus Road, a highly traveled thoroughfare in Jesus' day.
One of the things that made my visit to the Garden Tomb area so impacting was being able to get a sense of the setting in which Jesus spent those critical hours on the cross. If you're like me, you've heard about the crucifixion your whole life. But you may not have really spent time thinking about what really happened that day. Here are some of my thoughts about the place where Jesus was crucified.
The Crucifixion Was Very Public - The Romans didn't execute people in private. They killed people to make a point. Jesus' crucifixion site would have been near one of the main roads leading in and out of town. Potentially tens of thousands of people would have passed by and seen him hanging in between two criminals, with a placard over his head mocking him as "King of the Jews." The Crucifixion Happened in a Place of Death - Golgotha means "The Place of the Skull." The backdrop to the cross was a rocky outcropping in the shape of a skull. Some scholars believe that this was a Jewish execution site even before the time of the Romans. Yet even in a place that reeked of death, Jesus, by his death, won the ultimate victory.
The Crucifixion Was Humiliating - The manner in which Jesus was executed was intended to maximize his humiliation. He was stripped of his clothing. People mocked him and jeered at him. Isaiah tells us that he was like a man from whom people hide their faces. No doubt many people turned away, not able to look at him, as he hung dying there on the cross. I'm going to talk more about this in a later blog, but I often have wondered if the emotional trauma of the crucifixion wasn't just as bad as the physical trauma that Jesus endured.
I'll be back tomorrow to share some about the purpose of the cross. Why did Jesus have to die?
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