IN OUR TIME, and in all well-governed lands, when a man has been
sentenced to death, he is taken to prison and kept there safely for a
few days, that he may prepare to die. No one is allowed to do him harm;
good food is given him to eat, and he is allowed to live his last days
in peace. But in the old times, when Jesus was among men, prisoners
appointed to die were treated with the greatest cruelty. They were
mocked and beaten and spit upon for an hour or more, and then they were
led away to death.
So it was with Jesus on that day. After the soldiers had treated him
shamefully, they took off the scarlet robe and put on him his own
clothes. Then they laid upon his wounded shoulders the heavy beam of his
cross, and led him from Pilate's palace through the streets of Jerusalem
toward a hill outside the city wall. This hill was called in the Hebrew
tongue, the language of the Jewish people, "Golgotha," a word meaning
"Skull-place." In the language of the Romans, the word meaning
"Skull-place" was "Calvaria," and from this word the place where Jesus
was crucified has been called "Mount Calvary."
It is not certain where was the true Mount Calvary, the place of
Christ's cross. For a long time it was believed to be a little hill on
the west of the city; and over that hill was built in the after years a
great church, called "The Church of the Holy Sepulchre," because inside
that church they show not only the place where people thought that the
cross stood, but also the tomb or sepulchre in which Jesus was buried.
To this church thousands of people go every year, thinking that they
can see the very places where the Saviour died and was buried.
But most of those who have studied carefully all that can be known about
the city of Jerusalem and the hills around it, have believed that the
true Calvary was not where the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre now
stands, but at some other place. Many think that it was a rounded,
grass-covered little hill just outside the city on the north. The side
of this hill looking toward the city is very steep, and in it are two
great caves. As one stands on the city wall and looks at this rounded
hill, with the two holes in it, he thinks of a skull--which is a man's
head without the skin and the flesh, and with two eye-holes. This hill
may have been called "the skull-place," because it looks so much like a
skull. On this skull-like hill it may be that Jesus was crucified.
[Illustration: Church of the Holy Sepulchre, sometimes claimed to be
built upon the site of Calvary]
[Illustration: Turning to the women weeping over him, Jesus said: "Women
of Jerusalem, weep not for me but weep for yourselves and your
children!"]
Jesus walked through the streets of the city loaded down with the heavy
beam of his cross on his shoulders. The soldiers were dragging him on,
and some were driving him forward with blows, when suddenly, worn out
with suffering, and fainting from loss of blood and want of food, he
sank down upon the ground, unable to carry his load any further. Just
then a man coming from the country into Jerusalem, met the soldiers and
the crowd with Jesus. This man was named Simon. He was not Simon Peter,
the disciple of Jesus, but another Simon, who had come from a city far
away in Africa, called Cyrene. The soldiers seized this man, and made
him help Jesus in carrying the cross, until they came to Calvary.
Following the soldiers who had been commanded to crucify Jesus, was a
crowd of Jewish priests and scribes, the teachers of the law, and a
multitude of the lowest of the people, all shouting aloud their
rejoicing that Jesus was to be put to death, just as if he had been the
wickedest man in all the land. But among these were a few friends of
Jesus, and some of the women who had known him and loved him, and were
now weeping over the wrongs done to him.
Jesus turned and spoke to these women:
"Women of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and
your children! For the time is coming when they shall say, 'Happy are
those who have no children to suffer and to die.' In those days they
shall call out to the mountains, 'Fall on us,' and to the hills, 'Hide
us.' If this is what they do now in the beginning, what will they do
then in the end?"
Even in those terrible moments Jesus was not thinking of himself and his
own sufferings, but the sorrows that would soon come upon others.
[Illustration: ANCIENT JERUSALEM]
There is a story told of Jesus on the way to Calvary, which is not found
in any of the gospels, and may not be true. It is said that a good
woman, named Veronica, was standing by the street when Jesus went by.
Seeing his face covered with sweat, and dust, and blood, she went to him
and wiped his face with a napkin. When she looked at her napkin, she
found that on it had been printed the portrait of Jesus; and she kept it
ever afterward as her greatest treasure.
They led Jesus out of the gate in the city wall, and up the side of the
hill Calvary, wherever that hill was. There they laid the cross upon the
ground and stretched Jesus out upon it. They drove nails through his
hands and feet to fasten his body to the cross. Then they lifted it up
with Jesus upon it, and dropped the lower end of it into a hole so that
it would stand upright.
With Jesus they had brought two other men, who had been robbers, and
sentenced to die by the cross. These two men they crucified with Jesus,
one on his right hand and the other on his left, and Jesus between them,
as if he had been the most wicked man of the three.
Jesus knew that the Roman soldiers who fastened him to the cross were
not his enemies, as the Jews were, but were only obeying the orders that
had been given them by their officers. He prayed to God for them.
"Father," said Jesus, "forgive them, for they do not know what they are
doing!"
It was nine o'clock on Friday morning when Jesus was placed upon the
cross; and he hung there living for six awful hours, until three o'clock
in the afternoon.
[Illustration: When Jesus saw his mother, and beside her the disciple
whom he loved, he spoke from the cross to her: "Woman, there is your
son." Then he said to John: "Son, there is your mother."]
Jesus on the Cross