Climbing Mount Golgotha

1. The Prince of Life on a Mission. How did He, a person so used to the majestic beauty, comforts and privileges of His Heavenly home, manage to come down to this vale of tears to die for the sins of the world? Even the demotion of a Lichtenstein prince from his palace to the salt mines of Siberia would not properly describe the heights from which the Prince of Life has had to stoop for our sake; and (to add further insult to injury) has also had to even descend to the lower pits of damnation to take the keys of hell and of death away from His ancient adversary, the Devil.

2. How did He do it? How did He manage to gather the immense moral and spiritual resolve to suffer the cruel Roman scourging, the brutal crown of thorns, the merciless insults and beatings of the Jerusalem riff-raff and finally, the enemy’s pièce de résistance … the Roman cross of crucifixion (hence the word for extreme pain, i.e. ‘excruciating’)? Jesus did, however, warn: 

   “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost … For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many … Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” [Matthew18:11; Mark10:45; John10:11; 15:13].

3. Iron nails of Love. Christ managed to accomplish what no one before Him had ever managed to do by climbing Mount Golgotha to be crucified as God the Father’s ‘paschal lamb’ for the sins of the world, and the chains that had held Him to the rugged cross were not the iron spikes of the executioner, it was the iron nails of His LOVE for a lost mankind and the ultimate JOY of holy anticipation … a salvaged creation!

4. Joy trumped Pain. I recently have read of how a cat had gone into a burning building over and over (five times, with angry fires raging) to save her new little litter of five ... sometimes nature's call to love or nurture has, it would appear, been engraved in our DNA and emblazoned on our hearts by the Holy God in whose image we have been created. In His mind’s eye, Jesus Christ must have been able to see (or at least envisage) the millions of lost souls, widows, orphans and aborted babies (!) futuristically entering Heaven with their bitter tears finally wiped from their faces by God the Father Himself as facilitated by His sacrifice on the cross. The Bible says: 

   “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the JOY that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” [Hebrews12:2].

  

   "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God ... For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe ... But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness ... Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." [1Corinthians1:18,21,23,25].

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