The Calvary Story

THE CALVARY STORY

Luke 23:33A And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him.

During the last week of Jesus, He rode into Jerusalem on one Sunday as a carpenter , and on Friday, He was crucified, and the next Sunday, He arose as a King.

Arlington National Cemetery is so crowded that officials are working on a columbarium to store 50,000 urns of ashes. Governments world-wide are worried that if people continue to die, soon no more places would be found to bury them.

You and I do not know when death will come but Jesus did. The words of John the Baptist was ringing in his ears, “behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world”

In a biography of Daniel Webster, 863 pages dealt with his career and just five pages are devoted to his death.

In Hay’s life of Abraham Lincoln there are 5,000 pages but only 25 are devoted to the dramatic story of his assassination and death. In most biographies the deaths of the subjects are mere incidents at the close of the books.

But when we come to the four biographies of Jesus, the four Gospels, we are confronted with a strange fact. One-third of Mark, one-fourth of Luke, and one-half of John are given to His death. All these pages are devoted to the last 24 hours of His life. The death of Jesus Christ is a significant fact in human history, because Jesus Christ came for the express purpose of dying for sinners. When He left heaven, He knew He was going to the cross.

The death of Jesus in important, for it is given on an average of 35% in the Gospels.

CONCERNING THE CALVARY STORY, WE NOTICE THE FOLLOWING THREE SCENES:

I-NOTICE THE TESTING OF JESUS IN THE GARDEN: Matthew 26:36-45

This was Satan last attempt to get Jesus to skip the cross. In the first garden, the first Adam faced the tree of good and evil. In this garden, the second Adam is getting ready to face the tree of Calvary. One ruined the human race, this one redeemed the human race

A-We See The Saviour’s Prayer: 39

And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

Jesus knew what was coming. He knew He had been born for this purpose. He knew that He was the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev.13:8). However, the full emotional impact of what was about to transpire "began" at that moment to flood over Him.

Fell on his face Luke says "he kneeled down." He did both. He first kneeled, and then, in the fervency of his prayer and the depth of his sorrow, he fell with his face on the ground, denoting the deepest anguish and the most earnest entreaty. This was the usual posture of prayer in times of great earnestness

The "cup" that Jesus dreaded to drink was the outpouring of the holy fury of God’s wrath on sin.

It was not the physical torture of the cross that drove Jesus to such life-ending sorrow but the full understanding that He would within a few hours "bear the sins of many" (Heb.9:28). He who "knew no sin" would "be sin for us" (2 Cor.5:21). He would bear "our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Pet.2:24).

These Scriptures teach us that Our Saviour was a prayer warrior. He had said earlier, not faint in prayer, and here we see Him practicing what he preached.

Alta Vail of Emporia, Kansas, tells in Sunshine magazine how she found a new way to pray while ironing. One day she was thinking about the different kinds of lines—bus lines, clothes lines, fishing lines, telephone lines. Why not a prayer line? she asked herself. So she strung a short rope across one corner of her kitchen where she irons and hung cards on it with names of people she knew needed prayer. As she irons, she prays for each person by name. Not surprisingly, news has spread and she gets regular requests to “hang me on your prayer line.”

B-we See The Saviour’s Pain: 38

Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.

The word “sorrowful” in the original is much stronger than the one translated "sorrowful." It means, to be pressed down or overwhelmed with great anguish. This was produced, doubtless, by a foresight of his great sufferings on the cross in making an atonement for the sins of people.

Jesus was surrounded in sorrow. He was downing in it. He was so overwhelmed with what would happen that He was very close to "death."