Golgotha - Matt 27:33-34; Mark 15:22-23; Luke 23:33; John 19:13-17

Jesus makes his way up the hill to be crucified, and the name of the hill is, in Hebrew “Golgatha” and in Latin “Calvery,” both which translate to “The place of a skull” because the rocks are sort of shaped like a skull depending on how you look at it. The IM says “Calvariae (in English, Calvery) is the Latin translation of the Greek word that means ‘skull.’ The other Gospel writers called the place of execution Golgotha, which comes from the Hebrew gulgoleth and the Aramaicgulgutha, both of which mean ‘skull.’” It doesn’t say whether or not the Romans chose this hill as a place of execution because of the morbid look that it had or if it just was a highly visible place in which people could be made examples of. But either way it is fitting.

But the significance of where Jesus was crucified isn’t just that the rocks form a face of death, but there is also significance in the physical location as well. The IM points out that there are two sites that can be considered when trying to locate the actual spot of the crucifixion, saying, “The traditional and oldest proposed site of the Crucifixion, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the current site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Gordon’s Calvary, sometimes referred to as the Garden Tomb, is adjacent to Golgotha… If Gordon’s Calvary is the site, then its location is symbolically significant. Gordon’s Calvary is on the mount called Moriah in the Old Testament. It was on this mount that Abraham was commanded to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice, a sacrifice that was a similitude of the atoning sacrifice of the Savior. It is also noteworthy that this traditional site is north of the Jerusalem temple and outside the city walls. In Old Testament times, the law of Moses required that the sin offering, which was offered for an atonement of expiation, be offered at a location north of the altar and outside the camp of Israel.”
When I imagine the geography of the Old Testament, I never connected it to the geography of the New Testament, I always picture these two places as being worlds apart. But if we are to consider that the Law of Moses was supposed to teach the people about the upcoming atonement of Jesus Christ, then it would make sense that the two different time periods would have been happened one right on top of the other. I always love when the two worlds collide and things make more sense. I had never been able to really understand why Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac, but as I’ve learned different aspects of the story throughout the years it makes more sense. Then when I learned that it was on the very spot that Abraham built his sacrificial altar that Jesus was crucified, it was a very powerful full circle moment for me.
Upon reaching the top of the hill, before getting down to business, Jesus is offered a drink, Matthew says it is “vinegar… mingled with gall,” and Mark adds that it was “wine mingled with myrrh.” JTC explains, “Preparatory to affixing the condemned to the cross, it was the custom to offer each a narcotic draught of sour wine or vinegar mingled with myrrh and possibly containing other anodyne ingredients, for the merciful purpose of deadening the sensibility of the victim. This was no Roman practice, but was allowed as a concession to Jewish sentiment.” The IM clarifies that this tradition was a “Jewish custom of using wine as an anesthetic to ease the suffering of a person who was dying.”
Crucifixion was so horrific that anything to take the edge off would have been valued beyond gold for those facing the cross. But Jesus wouldn’t drink it, once he figured out what it was, a pain reliever, and what it was meant for, to ease his pain, he would not partake of it. Remember earlier when we talked about why Simon the Cyrene could carry Jesus’ cross without it negating the atonement, and I hypothesized that even Satan acquiesced that it wasn’t a deal breaker. In this case, Satan probably did dispute that any kind of pain reliever the Savior obtained would have given him unfair advantage and allowed Jesus to endure more than he otherwise would have been able to. The IM says, “Jesus refusing it, deliberately choosing not to dull his senses or decrease the pain of the crucifixion; He was determined to remain conscious and experience all that would be involved in the remainder of His atoning sacrifice.”
I know that it’s probably pretty abstract of a concept, and I don’t really understand all of it myself, but allowing Satan to dictate the circumstances of the Savior’s death is really the only way that Jesus could truly defeat him. In an effort to push too far, to get Jesus to quit because it was too hard, Satan had to be allowed to set the terms, otherwise he wouldn’t have “descended below all things.” I’m going to have to think about this more.