Golgotha, a Greek rendering of the Hebrew gulgôleth, means simply “the skull.” Some suggest it was the place where David brought the head of Goliath after his victory in the vale of Elah (see 1 Sam 17:54), thus giving it this name. If so, it is a fitting picture of his Greater Son who also, in apparent weakness, dealt the deathblow to the enemy’s head (Gen. 3:15) and by it delivered His people from the one under whose bondage they had been held “through fear of death” (Heb. 2:15).
But what is a skull? It is, as Harold St. John writes, “a human head shorn of its dignity and beauty, with no light in the eye sockets, an empty vacuum in the brain space, and with none of that grace of hair which is the sign of men’s strength and woman’s glory. It is Mark’s way of reminding us that when a man rejects Jesus Christ, all the lights of the world die down; there is nothing but a grinning, bony death’s head.”
Yes, Golgotha, the Skull, is the end to man’s reasonings, death to his arguments, the grave of his glory—apart from the Saviour. So writes Paul concerning the enigma of the cross in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.
On my first visit to Israel, I had the privilege of being accompanied by my wife. Louise is a contented woman and has little interest in seeing the sights her husband sees in his trips around the world. But she was eager to see the land where the Saviour lived, and especially to see the hill where He died.
The hill is obviously not as it was in Jesus’ day. Around it’s perimeter are the jagged disarray of apartments and shops of East Jerusalem. At the base of the cliff, where people point to the orbitae, or eyesockets of the skull, there sprawls a grim bus station (ironically the Bethlehem-Jerusalem line). On the southwest exposure is a gash in the skull, called to this day Jeremiah’s Grotto (now a banana warehouse!). It is thought that the weeping prophet wrote his Laments here. If so, the sad refrain often applied to the Saviour—“Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow…” (Lam. 1:12)—would have been written from the same vantage point as the Crucified, overlooking the city from the north.
What all this congestion means, of course, is that it is now impossible to get to the summit of Calvary, where the skull wears as its ghoulish crown a Muslim cemetery. Well, almost impossible. We walked entirely around the hill, finding no way to get up there…until we saw a boy returning from school. A long staircase, barred by a high gate, ascended to a caretaker’s cottage in the graveyard (where the boy obviously lived). Stooping down, the little fellow inadvertently showed us the secret when he pushed a bar that opened the gate.
Louise had found her answer. Waiting a few moments until the way was clear—or so we thought—we gingerly ascended the steps like alley cats on the prowl. We did reach the summit. Louise did get some good photographs. We did get a view that is rarely had these days. But we also did get our share of attention.
Suddenly we were spotted—non-Muslims in a Muslim graveyard! “Forbidden! Forbidden!” shouted the caretaker and his boy as they raced in our direction. (Louise continued to calmly take photos.) “Forbidden!” as the shout was taken up by male and female voices. Young. Old. In the street. From the apartment windows. We were surrounded. Tugging at Louise’s sleeve, I finally convinced her to beat with me a hurried retreat.
How grateful should we be that the true path to Calvary is never barred. We are not forbidden but bidden to come—in salvation, in confession, in service, in personal devotion and public remembrance. The road winds upward from humble hearts to heaven’s throne where the Lamb once slain now wears many diadems and where the song of the drunkard has given way to the anthem of the redeemed.
Written by J. B. Nicholson Jr