XVI Calvary
Luke xxiii. 33.
“Where the dear Lord was Crucified,
Who died to save us all.”
A while ago, someone sent to me a most beautiful photograph of the Hill of Calvary, which is just outside Jerusalem on the northern side.
The photograph was so carefully done that you could plainly see why that little hill was called “The place of a skull,” for when the sun shone in a certain direction the rocks had the appearance of a man’s skull; and that was why it was called Calvary, which is the Latin for skull. And here they crucified the Lord of glory.
When we look at the picture of those three crosses, with Jesus, our Saviour, in the midst, our hearts seem to stand still, as we remember how He died for us.
Now, I am going to tell you a true story, which a nurse told me, about one of her patients.
One day she was visiting a man who had been ill for many months; and when his wife opened the door to her she exclaimed, “Oh, nurse! he is better! He has had such a wonderful dream!”
So the nurse hastened upstairs, and to her amazement the man’s face was quite altered, and, instead of despair and suffering, he looked inexpressibly happy.
“Nurse!” he said. “Do you remember saying to me yesterday, ‘Prepare to meet thy God’?
“But while I was thinking, ever so sorrowfully, about those words, I seemed to fall asleep; yet what I saw seemed happening before my eyes.
“I saw the Cross of our Saviour, set up in front of me, and He was nailed to that cross with cruel nails. And close to the cross, between me and it, I saw a great deep hole—and I found myself moving nearer and nearer to that dark pit.
“Then I knew that I should fall into it, because I was not prepared to meet God; and yet I could not but look on our Saviour’s face, for tears rolled down it, and I did not like to see Him cry!
“So I said to someone standing by, ‘Why does our Saviour cry?’ and he said, ‘Because you will fall into that pit. He is dying to save you, but you will not come to Him to be saved!’
“And I said, ‘Oh dear Saviour, I do not want to make you cry, I will come and be saved! You shall not die in vain for me!’
“And then, when I looked for the pit, it was quite filled up!
“And then I began to wake from my dream, for my wife was shaking me by the arm, and she said, ‘Smith, Smith, you are singing in your sleep!’
“So I said, ‘What was I singing?’
“And she answered, ‘The hymn that was in the book nurse lent you, “Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow!”’
“And so, nurse, I woke up; and I’m saying all the time, ‘Wash me in the Blood of the Lamb, and I shall be whiter than snow!’ For He is my Saviour now!”