And from this study of the trial of our Saviour, let us carry away with us the five lessons of which we have spoken.
These are the lesson about the weak ruler:—the wicked priests:—the patience—the humiliation—and the glory of Christ.
THE CRUCIFIXION
We read in St. Matthew’s gospel these three simple, but solemn words: “They crucified him.” Chap. xxvii: 35. Here we have set before us the greatest event in the history of our Saviour while he was on earth. They tell us of the most important event that ever took place in our own world, or in any other world. We have no reason to suppose that Jesus ever took upon himself the nature of any other race of creatures, as he did take our nature. We have no reason to suppose that he ever died, in any other world, as he died in ours. How wonderful this makes the thought of his crucifixion! And how diligently we should study it, and try to understand what it was intended to teach! This is what we come now to do. And in doing this, the two great things for us chiefly to consider, are—The history of the Crucifixion; and its Lessons.
And in looking at this history the first thing for us to notice is—the place of the crucifixion.
In speaking of this place, St. Matt. xxvii: 33, says it was—“a place called Golgotha, that is to say a place of a skull.” St. Luke xxiii: 33, says it was a place “called Calvary.” Golgotha is a Hebrew word, and Calvary is a Latin word; but they both mean the same thing, namely a skull, or the place of a skull. Some have thought that this name was given to it because it was the spot where public execution took place and criminals were buried. But there is no proof of this. It is often spoken of as “the hill of Calvary”: but it is never so called in the New Testament. It is supposed to have received its name from the fact of its being a smooth and rounded piece of ground, resembling somewhat the shape of a skull, and looking like what we call the brow of a hill. Exactly where this place was we cannot tell. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem they show a hole in a rock, which they pretend to say was the very hole in which the cross of Jesus was placed. But it is impossible to prove this. And the thought which shows how unlikely this is to be the Calvary where Jesus died is this, that Jesus died outside the walls of Jerusalem, but this is inside the walls, and we know that the city at that time was much larger than the present city. The apostle Paul tells us that “Jesus suffered without the gate.” Heb. xiii: 13. We are sure then that Calvary, or Golgotha, the place of the crucifixion, was outside the walls of Jerusalem, but nigh unto the city. This is all that we can find about it with any certainty.
The time of the crucifixion is the next thing to consider. It was on Friday of the last week of his earthly life. What is called “Good Friday,” in the week before Easter, known as Passion Week, is kept by a large part of the Christian Church in memory of this event.
As to the hour of the day when the crucifixion took place, there is some difference in the statements made by the different evangelists. St. Matthew says nothing about the hour when Jesus was crucified. He only says that during the time of the crucifixion, “from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.” St. Matt. xxvii: 45. This means from twelve o’clock at noon, till three o’clock in the afternoon. St. Luke and St. John both say that it was—“about the sixth hour,” when this great event took place. But it is clear from their way of speaking of it, that they did not wish to be understood as stating the time very exactly. St. Mark says—ch. xv: 25, “And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.” There seems to be a disagreement between these statements. But it is easy enough to reconcile the difference. There are two ways of doing this. One is by supposing that when St. Mark says: “It was the third hour, and they crucified him,” he was speaking of the time when they began to make preparations for the crucifixion, while St. Luke and St. John refer to the time when the preparations were all finished, and the crucifixion had actually taken place.