Equal at the Foot of the Cross
When I was in Jerusalem I visited the place where Jesus died. In Hebrew it is Golgotha, the place of the skull. In movies, man-made stories and through pictures, we have depicted this place as one that is high on a hill called Calvary. We've made it almost regal in it's glory, a silhouette of 3 crosses side by side with dark clouds looming in the distance. It's anything but that. In fact it's just a foothill if you will, beside a very busy street. The Roman soldiers liked to hang their victims on crosses alongside this road so that the ultimate humiliation could be garnered and passers-by could spit, throw stones and call out obscenities to the tortured and dying. It was at ground level so that onlookers could view up close the rebels choking on their own blood. An attempt to deter any future uproars against Rome.
I stood on a high place that day and looked down upon Golgotha. It is now a bus station. I saw an Arab man standing in the parking lot below me where they used to stone people and where they presume they actually crucified Jesus. It's right in the heart of the Muslim quarter. It's dirty there. It's rundown. It didn't smell good. In ancient times, it was a place of death... It appears to be that it still is. Anyway, the Arab and I made eye contact... For a good minute or so... And I prayed. I prayed that Jesus would encounter him in such a kind and gracious way that he would never be the same. I prayed that all the deep broken places in him would be healed. I prayed that God would raise him up with truth and light and use him in a mighty way right there in the deep darkness.
Yes, Golgotha was a place of humiliation, torture and the ultimate display of death. The blood that no doubt ran down the dusty road just outside the Damascus Gate was a reminder to all of Jerusalem that penalty for wrongdoing was a certain and cruel consequence.
On that Friday, an innocent man hung high and stretched wide made not a sound of complaint. In fact, the only recorded conversation that was uttered out of compassion and promise, "Forgive them Father, for they know NOT what they do..." And as His eyes glanced up to meet the fading ones that did deserve to be there, Mercy cried out "TODAY, you will be with me in paradise."
Each time I make the pilgrimage home to my beloved Israel, I go back to the high place and stand overlooking Golgotha. I always think of the Arab man I met eyes with... And I'm fully aware that at that moment we were just two humans standing in the place where redemption was paid for...Equal at the foot of the Cross.
