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Jesus Christ knows your pain & suffering.

I’m sure I heard this week’s word at some point when I was a young child and the story of the crucifixion was being read in church. But if that is the case, I certainly don’t remember much about it. The earliest time I can remember hearing and actually thinking about “Golgotha” was when I was a teenager at the regional church camp. The entire assembly, close to 200 staff and campers, were gathered around the evening campfire tucked away in the middle of the woods. Except for the light from the huge campfire in the middle, the moon, the stars, and a few small torches around the perimeter of the seating area, we were in the midst of darkness. I was narrating a crucifixion skit and was reading the account of the soldiers bringing Jesus to Golgotha while others acted out what was being read. This was long before I studied or learned anything theologically or historically about the place, and I distinctly remember saying to myself afterward, “Golgotha…Now that just sounds bad!”

Have you ever thought about that? There’s a reason why prisons, both fictional and non-fictional, have names like “Alcatraz”, “Shawshank”, “Leavenworth”, and “Folsom”. Do any of those places sound pleasant? You don’t ever hear of anyone getting sentenced to serve time at Rose Garden, Sandy Beach, or Sunflower. It’s not that we can fully grasp the horror of Jesus’ crucifixion anyway, but doesn’t “Golgotha” at least give you a more accurate feeling about the situation than if it were called Palm Springs? The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, and one of the reasons is that it crosses over into so many different genres of literature. It is historical, scientific, humorous at times, romantic, and dramatic, just to name a few. It is no accident that the place where Jesus died has such an unpleasant name and that the gospel writers chose to mention it at the exact points of their accounts that they did.

From everything I’ve read, it appears that Golgotha was the regular place for criminals to be executed and humiliated just outside of the city walls of Jerusalem. Even though our Savior’s execution is the most important event in all of history for us, it still occurred within a specific system, on a specific date, at a specific time, in a specific location. God took what probably appeared to many walking by as an ordinary execution to which they were accustomed and turned it into something extraordinary.

The entire story of the crucifixion has parts that were typical and parts that were atypical. I encourage you to read it, but I’d like to point out two very loaded examples in the verses immediately before and after the mentioning of Golgotha in Matthew 27:33. In v. 32, we see that the soldiers forced “a man from Cyrene, named Simon” to carry Jesus’ cross. Cyrene was in North Africa and was 800 miles away from Jerusalem. While it was ordinary that the soldiers would pick any random stranger to help the criminal carry his cross up the hill, it was extraordinary that, in this case, it happened to be a man who was probably a devout Jew who had traveled 800 miles to celebrate Passover and wanted nothing to do with this man who was being humiliated, yet is believed to have become an early Christian disciple after this experience (New Bible Commentary).

In v. 34, after we read that they came to Golgotha, we see that the soldiers “offered Jesus wine mixed with gall”. Matthew’s gospel says that Jesus then refused to drink it “after tasting it” (meaning he probably spit out whatever he had tasted), whereas Mark’s gospel says that Jesus simply refused it. Either way, it is clear that Jesus did not take this substance into his system. On the surface, that seems irrelevant because the “wine mixed with gall” seems like just another sadistic act attempted to make Jesus suffer even more. But actually, quite the opposite is true. The offer of “wine mixed with gall” was a typical part of crucifixions because the combination formed a sort of pain-numbing narcotic (NBC), similar to morphine or other opiates that we have today. So, Jesus’ refusal to take the “wine mixed with gall” was not a rejection of further suffering, it was a rejection of taking the easy way out! The offer to Jesus was ordinary, but his decision to willingly endure all of the suffering possible was extraordinary.

Can you think of any more difficult temptation to resist in the history of the world? You’re in the midst of the most excruciating pain and agony that anyone has ever faced or will ever face and you are given an opportunity to numb some of it, but you know that to do so would be disobedient to God. Jesus gave up his breath not long after that, so this was literally one of the very last temptations he faced. Friends, you can believe with assurance that the Scripture is true, that Jesus was indeed our high priest “who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15b). If Jesus would have taken the substance at Golgotha, it would have changed everything. He wouldn’t literally be able to say that he has been tempted in every way and did not sin, and thus there would be someone out there reading this that might be able to truthfully say that “Jesus doesn’t understand what I’m going through”. As it is, no one can truthfully say that. Take solace in the fact that no matter what you are suffering, Jesus understands at an experiential level. Surrender all to him, and trust him to guide you through it!