God’s Word for You
Mark 15:21-23 Gall and Golgotha
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, March 15, 2024
Two thousand years before Jesus carried the cross through the streets of Jerusalem, Abraham “took the wood for the offering and placed in on his son,” and his son was made to carry that wood to the place where he was to be slaughtered (Genesis 22:6). The parallel is remarkable, but at that point Isaac was no longer a forerunner of Jesus, since a substitute was found to be sacrificed in his place. In fact, Isaac foreshadows you and me more than anything else. Praise God for the one and only true sacrifice: Jesus Christ, for the sins of the world!
21 And they forced a passerby to carry the cross. He was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, who was just then coming in from the country. 22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of the Skull). 23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.
Simon of Cyrene was not there to take part in the crucifixion in any way. He was simply a man on his way into the city that morning, probably because he was living or staying nearby and was heading in for the service of the morning sacrifice, which happened at around 9:00 am. Since his name is Simon, we can be quite certain that he was a Jew. Grabbing this man, they forced him to help Jesus. By this time the Lord was so exhausted from his ordeal, sleeplessness, whippings and beatings, that he could make little progress out of the city. Simon would not have wanted to touch the cross (it made him ceremonially unclean). Simon did not die on the cross for anyone’s sins. He did not remove any of Jesus’ suffering. He did not bear any of the sins of the world by picking up the cross; not even his own. He only helped the soldiers get the condemned men out of the city a little more quickly. The sins of the world were carried by Christ alone.
They brought the condemned men out to the little knob of a hill called Golgotha. Its name means the place or hill of the skull, perhaps because it generally looked like a bare skull on top. We don’t know where this was, but the usual places that are suggested, north or west of the city, are good guesses. There may have been more than one place outside the city where the Romans executed their criminals. As for the route, the city has been destroyed and rebuilt several times; the streets today are not what they once were. Those who sell tickets or trinkets or even relics at the so-called Via Dolorosa are doing so to make money from pilgrims. Many of the most learned men that I know, scholars, professors, archaeologists, and one of my own sons, have gone there and returned without knowing for certain which place is certainly Golgotha, and I respect their judgment. What we know for certain is that the habit of the Romans was to crucify men on streets or roads leading into a city so that the largest number of people would see. The cross was a terror weapon. Most people would do anything at all to avoid crucifixion.
The soldiers offered Jesus wine mixed with something to dull the pain. Mark says that the substance was actually myrrh. Myrrh might have a pleasing aroma (Song of Solomon 3:6), but it dulled pain when drunk. This wasn’t because the soldiers pitied the condemned, but because it helped them to nail the doomed men in place without too much of a struggle; it made their hideous task easier.
Jesus refused the drink. Some of the Scriptures refer to the bitterness of gall (anything that tastes bitter) in prophecies and passages that look ahead to this moment. “I looked for sympathy, but there was none. For comforters, but I found none. They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst” (Psalm 69:20-21). “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I will remember them, and my soul is downcast within me” (Lamentations 3:19).
We see here the completion of Jesus’ role as the true, the greatest, and the final High Priest of Israel. A priest had four tasks: to teach the people (Leviticus 10:11), to pray for the people (Numbers 21:7), to bless the people (Numbers 6:23), and to make sacrifices on behalf of the people (Exodus 20:24). Jesus our great High Priest taught for years in Galilee, Judea, and even in Samaria, Tyre and Sidon, and across the Jordan. Jesus prayed for the people (John 17:1-26) and taught the people how to pray (Matthew 6:9-13). Jesus blessed the people again and again (Matthew 5:3-11) including the children that people brought to him (Mark 10:16). Jesus also performed the one sacrifice that none of the priests of Israel could ever do: He sacrificed himself for the sins of the world: “He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself” (Hebrews 7:27).
This brings us back to refusing the drink. If Christ had quickly died after the drug was given to him, long before the others were dead on their crosses, it might be suspected and said that he died of poisoning and not of suffering. He did not want it said that his suffering was taken away from him. He did not come to have his suffering removed. He came to remove the debt of our sins by means of his suffering. He came to be a ransom for our souls.
The world is confused by the cross. It is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23). Before or during Holy Week each year, the Jehovah’s Witnesses will pass out materials that are meant to confuse Christians, arguing about the nature of the physical cross or its shape instead of its spiritual importance. They want to throw dust in our eyes about the “what” rather than be instructed as to the “why” of the crucifixion. Let them fumble and shuffle around in their confusion. It would be better for most Christians not to waste time trying to argue with them; let them go. Don’t bother with their little tracts and flyers. If they think they’ve done good deeds and earned something by passing them out to you, they are mistaken, except that they’ve earned a deeper pit in hell.
Christ suffered and died to pay the full price for our sins. That is the “why.” We can’t add to what he did. We embrace it. We love him for it. We praise him and thank him for what he has done. We boast about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:14), for only in this are sins removed. He was taken outside the city like a sacrifice, and he bled and died as the one sacrifice for all. For us.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.