"The sun rose higher and higher. Time oozed out like the blood that dripped from the cross. Jesus opened His eyes and saw His mother standing there and John beside her. He called out the name of John who came closer and Jesus said, "You will take care of her, John." And John, choked with tears, put his arm around the shoulders of Mary. Jesus said to His mother, 'He will be your son.' His lips were parched and He spoke with difficulty. He moved His head against the hard wood of the cross as a sick man moves his head on a hot pillow. A thunder storm was blowing up from the mountains and the clouds hit the sun-- it was strangely dark. The people looked up at the sky and became frightened. Women took little children by the hand and hurried back to the city before the storm would break. It was an uncanny darkness -- it had never been as dark before. Something terrible must be about to happen. Women stood praying for Jesus and for the thieves. The centurion was silent although every now and then he would look up at Jesus with a strange look in his eyes. The soldiers were silent too. Their gambling was over. They had won and lost. Suddenly, Jesus opened His eyes and gave a loud cry. The gladness in His voice startled all who heard it for it sounded like a shout of victory. "It is finished. Father into Your hands I commend My Spirit." And with that, He died.
"Now they were all there that day on the top of the hill-- the friends of Jesus and His enemies. The church people, they were there as well as the people who never went to church. The priests were there and the scribes, the greedy Sadducees, the hypocrites, the proud Pharisees with their robes, their broad bordered phylacterys on which golden bells were sewn with golden thread. They were there drawing their robes more tightly around them and standing with arms folded approvingly. They were there. And the people who were always talking about the church and always talking about the Lord, the pious people on whose lips there were always glib quotations from the Scriptures -- they were there. The unbelievers were standing beside them. The harlots were there and their customers were there. They were all there. Simon of Cyrene was there and the soldiers too... Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
"When we consider who were there and when we are honest with ourselves we know that we were there and that we helped to put Christ there. because every attitude present on that hilltop that day is present in our midst now. Every emotion that tugged at human hearts then tugs at human hearts still. Every face that was there is here too. Every voice that shouted then is shouting still. Every human being was represented on Calvary. Every sin was in a nail, or the point of a spear, or the thorns. And pardon for them all was in the blood that was shed.
"Nineteen hundred years have passed away but the rains of the centuries with their calloused tears have not yet washed away the blood from the rotting wood of a deserted cross. Nor have the winds covered His footprints in the sands of Judea. Calvary still sands. And you and I erect the cross again and again and again every time we sin. The hammer blows are still echoing somewhere in the caverns of your heart and mine--- every time we deny Him -- every time we sin against Him or fail to do what He commanded. he is being crucified again and again and again. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? I was-- were you?"
I first heard that message of U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall maybe 50 years ago, and for all those years I understood God to be saying to me that I indeed helped put Jesus on the cross, and so I was indeed there at Calvary. True enough.
But recently God has "kicked it up a notch." As I have been studying and hearing the Voice of the Lord, I have become aware that not only was I there as a part of the crucifying mob, I was also there as a partaker of the Victim's death. I was on that cross with Jesus.
When we came into Christ, we inherited a shared experience with the very Son of God.
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