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"The Place of the Skull," number 7 in the "Villadola Rosa" series by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. Please give attention to the second reading of God's word from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 15, beginning with the verse number 22. "And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of a skull. And they offered him wine mingled with myrrh, but he

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did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, 'The King of the Jews.' And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed

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by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, 'Aha, you who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross.' So also the chief priests mocked him to one another with the scribes, saying, 'He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that

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we may see and believe.' Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' And some of the bystanders hearing it said,

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'Behold, he is calling Elijah.' And one ran and, filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, 'Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.' And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion

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who stood facing him saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, 'Truly this man was the son of God.' There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James the Younger and of Joseph, and Salome, who, when he was in Galilee, followed

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him and ministered to him, and also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. And when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body

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of Jesus. And Pilate wondered if he were already dead, and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. And he bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the

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rock. And he rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joseph, saw where he was laid." Let us praise God for this, his written word. "I was visiting my brother and his family, who lived at that time in Arlington Heights,

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Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago. One day, wanting to go into the city, I took the elevated train from Arlington Heights into Chicago. I had never made the trip before; I was interested in the various sights and sounds. One of the things I saw was a cemetery, a huge cemetery. I don't believe that before that time or since that time I have seen a

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larger cemetery. The train stopped at the cemetery, as it had stopped at many other places along the route. And as at every other place, the voice of the conductor came over the loudspeaker, announcing where we were. This is what I heard. 'Calvary's Cemetery, Calvary's Cemetery. Anyone for Calvary? Anyone for Calvary?' And the train went on. I did

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not see or hear anything else on the trip, for my mind, my whole consciousness, was captured by that question. 'Anyone for Calvary?' Calvary does have, at one and the same time, a strange appeal to us and also a strange repugnance for us. To me, it's summed in the names we give to the place. We sometimes call it Calvary, and when we think of Calvary, we usually think

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of things in terms of the hymn we sang a few minutes ago. 'There is a green hill far away, outside a city wall, where the dear Lord was crucified, who died to save us all.' That's Calvary. But it was also Golgotha. And Golgotha means 'the place of the skull.' And the place of the skull. And when we think of the cross in terms of the place of the skull, we are

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confronted by the blind eyes of sinful men, the gaping mouths of the selfish and the greedy and the lascivious in the world, and the hard, polished surface of human pseudo-sophistication. Calvary draws us. Anyone for Calvary? Golgotha somehow turns us away. Anyone for Golgotha? I'd like to think with you about the wonder and the worry of the cross. I think that it

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brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think

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that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story.

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I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our

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story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end

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of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to

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the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings

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us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it

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brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think

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that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story.

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I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our

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story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end

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of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to

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the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings

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us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it

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brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think

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that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story.

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I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our

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story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. I think that it brings us to the end of our story. My conscience says to me, "Your own orthopraxis is a weak and insipid and meaningless thing.

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I see the watch on someone's wrist, and my will says to me, 'He spent more money for that watch than he has spent in the service of the hungry and the suffering of the world in a year.'" And my conscience then says to me, "Your own stewardship is a weak and a tawdry thing. I'm lied about, and my will says, 'Hit back, only harder.'" And then

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my conscience says to me, "Their lies are not as bad as the truth about you would be." I am sharing with a student now some of the pages of the Great Mystics. And last week we read together from the writings of Catherine of Genoa. And there is a place in her writings when this Great Spirit speaks of God's love searching her like some giant eye, and she

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says that under the strength of their search, there is nothing within her that is without fault. I know that feeling. I can identify with that, even when I yearn to be righteous, even when I seek God with all the passion that I can muster. At that moment, what am I doing? I am asserting my own will, when my access to God can never be the fruit of

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my own will, but only through the grace of God and Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit says to me, "Be silent. Try not to claim heaven in and of yourself." So I close my eyes and cover my ears and try with everything I have to be still before God, and I find my mind asking, "Am I being sorry enough for my sins?" Even, you see, then, measuring my own devotion

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and trying somehow to obligate God. I am assaulted by my own will. And discipleship means the death of one's own will. Love cannot live in any place where the will is. So someone says to me, "Well, compared to him, I'm not so bad. Compared to that so-and-so, I'm not so bad." My problem is that the only so-and-so by whom I can measure myself is Jesus, the

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model of perfect humanity. And when I confront him, I'm like Iago in Othello. I say, "His beauty makes me ugly." Or I'm like Augustine, who says, "He sneaks up behind me, captures me, and forces me to face myself." Or I'm like Paul, who confronting Jesus says, "Oh, who will deliver me from this body of death?" Or I'm like Peter, who when he's looked

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upon by Jesus, goes out into the night and weeps bitterly. Which one of us is ready to measure our nobility against that of Jesus? Our service against that of Jesus? Our love against that of Jesus? Our sacrifice against his sacrifice? Calvary? Anyone for Calvary? Sure! By God, through Christ, we have access. Anyone for Golgotha? Golgotha reminds us that

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without him, because of the aching profundity of our own sin, we would never have any access at all. [Bell rings] Please turn your cassette to the other side.

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Another word of Paul's. Paul says of the cross, "You were bought with a price." It's in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. He's saying that in his death, Christ redeemed us. It's a very interesting picture. In the New Testament, slavery was a common institution. There were only two ways in which a slave could gain freedom. He could gain it as a gift given

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to him by his owner, or he could earn it. The way in which he earned it was, every slave had a small bit of spare time, and in that time he could work for another. Now, the money that he was paid, part of it he would have to return to his owner, but the remainder he could take and deposit at a nearby temple, dedicating it to some god or goddess. Now

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across the years, he would make more and more deposits, until the amount of money deposited in the temple equaled what it would take to buy his freedom. He would then take his owner to the temple, and the priest of that temple would purchase the slave in the name of the god or the goddess, so that the slave no longer belonged to the earthly owner, but now belonged

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to God. It's a beautiful analogy, then, to say, as Paul does, that we are bought with a price. We are redeemed by Christ. We must not, of course, press the analogy too far, because we cannot contribute anything to our salvation. We can earn no coins to place on deposit. The currency of our lives is counterfeit. The coinage that we produce is not genuine.

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It is only the gold and the silver of the perfect life of Christ which wins for us access. That's the good news of Calvary, that God so loved us that he bought us for himself. But what about Golgotha? Golgotha said that if Christ bought us, then we belong to him. If we are no longer the slave of any earthly power, we are his slave. To be a member of

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the kingdom of God is to have no vote. It is not a democracy, and it is not a republic. To be a citizen of the kingdom of God means to lay aside one's ambition in the face of the lordship of Jesus. Whether that ambition be for money or power or prestige, whatever, it must be laid aside in obedience to the master. That's very hard for me. I find it

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difficult to understand myself as a slave of Jesus. The telephone rings at one o'clock in the morning, and it is a student who came to counsel with me some weeks before, to whom I gave the best counsel and advice that I could give, and she rejected it and now is in trouble. And she calls at one o'clock in the morning, and I am very tired and in bed,

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and everything in me says, "Be hard with her. Tell her tomorrow." And then I remember, "I'm a slave of Christ. You never say tomorrow." I name my house Nod, and I make it available to those who want the things that can be found there. So two weeks ago, two students came who could not find a place to sit and watch television alone and ask if they could watch

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TV, and I said yes, and they played it rather loud, so I could not study in my office. I went upstairs to my bedroom. And when I finished my work about eleven o'clock on Saturday night, I came downstairs to watch with them and found that another couple had come, and the two of them were sitting there. So I decided to go to the basement to shoot some pool. When

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I went to the basement, I found that another student was using my washer and my dryer, and when I went into the game room, I found that four students were already playing pool. So I thought I would go back to my bedroom, for there's a small television set there, and when I got to my bedroom, I found that while I had been downstairs, two other students

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had come in and were watching a different program upstairs in my bedroom. So I went to my office, which is not a nice place to be at eleven thirty on Saturday night, and I looked upon, taken advantage of, I had to remind myself that I'm the slave of Jesus Christ. I don't have that privilege. I don't have that prerogative. I'm going to tell you

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something that maybe no one's ever told you before. It's time for you to learn it. Did you know that all the freshmen that come to this college ask the same questions? Every freshman class asks the same questions. Did you know that all the sophomores ask the same questions as the sophomores from before? And the juniors the same thing? And the seniors

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the same thing? Did you know that we who seek to serve you here as teachers or leaders or counselors or administrators hear the same questions from you over and over and over and over again, till the time comes when you really think to yourself, "You don't want to hear those questions anymore." And just at that moment, you have to remember, you

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do not belong to yourself. You belong to another, and you seek to serve. Oh, it was easy. When I started out in the ministry, I opened the door of my life to a few people, to those I thought I could influence in some way, and they were attracted in time, and they came in. The trouble is, they left the door open, and other people came after them, and they

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were not always so nice, and they were not always so attractive, and they came in and they brought all their garbage and all their junk with them, and they began to push at my life and pull at my life and shove me around and use me to suit their pleasures, and I found myself with a tremendous inner rage, angry enough to begin to hit back, "It's my

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house!" But it isn't. It isn't my house. It isn't my ministry. It isn't my service. I'm the only servant that some people are ever going to have, and I am that because I've been bought. And when I was bought, I lost my vote. Anyone for Calvary? Sure, there we're redeemed. Anyone for Golgotha? That's where we break our sword and throw it into the dust.

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That's where we kill our own ambition. That's where we offer ourselves without restraint. Anyone for Golgotha? One last word. The Apostle Paul also says, this time in the second chapter of Corinthians, "Christ reconciled us to God and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation." That word

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"reconciliation" is a metaphor for friendship. It means that in Christ, God's friendship for us is made evident. There's been a war between man and God. Oh, God has not been warring on man. Man has been shaking his fist in God's face. And God spoke to us of this and promised peace. And then in the covenants, he pledged peace. And then through his Old

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Testament prophets, he prophesied peace. And then through Christ, he preached to us peace. And we never wanted to hear. And finally it came to the place where even the vocabulary of God was exhausted. And so, he demonstrated his love. The price he would pay for peace. And he climbed a cross. And when he did, the veil which hung between the holy of holies

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where God was and separated him from his people, that veil, was split from the top to the bottom. And God and man were reconciled. Anyone for Calvary? To know that God's your friend? By all of us, of course. But what about God? It's the second half of the verse. Remember what Paul said? Christ reconciles us to God and gives to us the ministry of reconciliation.

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That is, we are not only befriended by God, but we are to be the friends of all others. We are to be reconciling agents in the world. Blessed are the peacemakers, Jesus said. They are the ones that shall be called the children of God. But it's a costly thing to be a peacemaker. I think of Harold. Harold became a Christian one night as he stood beside a car in the

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driveway. We'd walked Rufus together, and when we came back there in that dark driveway leaning up against the Oldsome field, he offered himself to the reconciling grace of God. And then, captured by that, this Eagle Scout, this president of the senior class, this leader of his chapter of the D. Malay, this man with a 3.9 in college, this one who had done so

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much, decided to invest his life in the service of the poor and the black. And he went to Mississippi and offered himself in service there. And in the intervening eight years, this young man who lived in poverty, I visited his house two summers ago, just a little house under a tree, a pathetic little house. The temperature was 106 degrees. There was no

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fan, there was no air conditioning. He lived there with his wife and their three children. Two children are their own, and one he has adopted. It was a little boy whose mother said it lie, and the lie ate out the voice box of the child, so nobody else wanted this child. But you see, he sees himself as an agent of peace, so he adopted this little

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boy with all the scars and the hole in his throat. He adopted him, and he's loved that child out of all the anger and bitterness that was in him. So that he's become a beautiful youngster in the things of the Spirit. And there have been operations and operations, and he's written two books to help the blacks, and he's founded three medical clinics,

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and the Ford Foundation gave him one grant and was so impressed with his work that they've now come and they've given him another grant to develop a study of how to deal with adolescent pregnancies. He has poured himself out as a peacemaker, reconciled with God. He is an agent of reconciliation. Pope Paul VI, a great pope, put it superfluously, and in a single

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second, "If you want peace, then work for justice. But working for justice is Golgotha." So there's one hill. There we are forgiven, and there we are reminded of our sins. There we are free, and there we become slaves of Christ. There we find peace with God, and there we take upon ourselves the task of being peacemakers. One hill, one cross, but that

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cross is the final truth of all of history. It is the great signpost of eternity, and all who lived before it looked toward it, and all who lived after it looked toward it. That ugly frame, those coarse beams, blood-quality, are both the shame and the glory of all of time. And today, we put that cross in places of honor. We fashion it from the rarest material.

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We sew it to our flags, and we carve it on the scepters and the diadems of kings. For that dead tree has sunk its roots into the sick heart of the world, and like Aaron's rod it has sprouted and sent its branches to the heavens. It is the power in the world. The hymn is only half right. There is a green hill far away. Half of that's right. There

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is a green hill. A high hill, a hard hill, but a green hill, and when you get to the top of it, what a view! But the other half of the sentence is wrong. For that hill isn't far away. It's in the heart of every single one of us. Let us pray. O God, lead us to the hill in our own hearts. Claim us by Calvary for the glory of your

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name. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. Amen. "SAVE OUR PLANS. PUT SUPPORT."