Where's Calvary?

One thing that took me by surprise on my trip to the Holy Land was the existence of competing holy sites -- dueling locations where different groups contend that the same event from the Bible took place. My father was struck by the same thing when he visited Israel thirty years before me. He wrote: "Many of the holy places in Jerusalem rival one another in their claim to be the site where Jesus did this or that. While there, we visited the traditional and alternative sites of Calvary, also called Golgotha or the Place of the Skull, the site of the crucifixion.

Altar at Golgotha - Church of the Holy Sepulcher

The first one has a more ancient claim. It was the place designated in the 4th Century by Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine the first Christian Roman emperor, as the place where Jesus was crucified. It is nothing more than a small rocky outcrop no more than 14 meters high. Now built over this location is the magnificent but somewhat tarnished Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, which is shared by Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Armenian Christians. Under one of the altars in this church is a socket or hole in the floor where they will tell you the cross was erected. This is probably close to the actual place of the crucifixion, but somehow in the strange atmosphere of this ancient church I personally did not 'feel' close to the original Good Friday event -- that is, until later when I combined it with a visit to a rival site of the crucifixion.

Gordon's Calvary

North of Jerusalem's Damascus Gate is a rocky knoll which, British General Charles Gordon was one of the first to point out, resembles a skull. The hill is sometimes called Gordon's Calvary, and it is preserved in its natural state. However, as you stand on the visitors' overlook, visualizing what may have taken place on this hill outside the city 2,000 years ago, it is impossible to block out the mundane sights and diesel smells of a bus station immediately below it. There people come and go, doing the everyday business of Jerusalem, with never a glance up at the supposedly sacred hill above them. It was a dramatic moment for me as I realized that wherever the real Calvary was, there may well have been nearby, not a bus station, but a depot for the unloading and loading of camel caravans, a place of commerce and business with people scurrying about as unheeding as they were that rainy afternoon of my visit. Jesus died in the world, for the world.

That dual experience of being at two supposed places of the crucifixion of my Lord Jesus Christ left me with a question: Where is Calvary?

Now I know that Calvary is wherever the dynamics of the Calvary event take place. Calvary is wherever the Lord's people slink away and forsake him while others, whom you would never suspect, recognize him and pay homage to him. One of the saddest verses in the Bible is Mark 14:50 where Mark reports what the disciples, Jesus' friends, did immediately upon his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane: 'They all forsook him and fled.'  And so it was not one of the twelve, but a stranger from Cyrene, who carried his cross. It was not one of the inner circle, but a dying thief, who expressed belief in him. It was not a friend, but a Roman Centurion, who said 'Truly this man was the son of God.' It was not a disciple, but one from his group of enemies in the Sanhedrin, who took his body, prepared it for burial, and laid it in a tomb.

One recent Sunday afternoon, as I was busily trying to get ready for confirmation class, a battered old car rattled up to the church carrying a young couple who I judged from years of experience with these things to be looking for someone who would listen to their story and then assist them with money for food or gas. I was in the hall near my study grumbling to myself about what poor timing this was and how I couldn't deal with this interruption right now. A few minutes passed, and although I knew the couple had entered the church, I thought it strange that they hadn't yet come looking for me. I went to the narthex to see what was up, and there they were in the sanctuary praying! They finished and came out to me in the narthex and asked where they could make a donation to the church. I showed them the donation box. They put something in and left, and I was greatly taken aback and humbled. Who was faithful to the crucified Lord that day? Who stood by him? The annoyed and busy clergyman of this very proper church, or the rag-tag couple who came in to pray?

Where is Calvary? Calvary is wherever Jesus' followers forsake him while others surprisingly rise up to praise him and minister in his name. Calvary is many places:

• As Pilate discovered, Calvary is wherever you decide to do the expedient thing rather than the right thing, where you're willing to make human life secondary to political necessity. Calvary is wherever you hand the Christ over to the angry crowd for crucifixion.

• As Peter found out, Calvary is wherever you compromise what you know in your heart to be good and true in order to save your own skin. Calvary is wherever you deny that you know Jesus.

• As Judas must have finally realized, Calvary is wherever we turn against those who have disappointed us and have not lived up to our expectations. Calvary is wherever you betray your Lord.

Calvary is not in an ornate basilica or on a hill overlooking a bus station. Ultimately, Calvary is in our hearts. The old hymn asks, 'Were you there when they crucified my Lord?' Yes, all of us were there. Some have shouted the curses; some have driven the nails; some have gambled for his garments; some have just run away, but all of us were there. And the Gospel in the midst of all of this is that Jesus looks down upon us from his cross and he says, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'

It is this word from the cross, this word of forgiveness, that gives us hope. This is the word that brought eleven miserable, frightened, and guilt-ridden disciples out of hiding and turned them into the powerhouse that the early church became. It is the word that will free you and me to move on past our Calvary to the Easter we are longing for."

From:"Where's Calvary?"

Scripture: Mark 15:21-47

Preached: March 27, 1988

at Paoli United Methodist Church