What is the Via Dolorosa?

Feeble indeed is our comprehension of the depths to which the Lord went in meeting God’s glory and our need. First from the eternal throne to the stable at Bethlehem, to Egypt, to Nazareth; profounder still, to Gethsemane; awful beyond words, to Calvary; and finally Joseph of Arimatha’s new tomb—who can measure that road? It surely was the Via Dolorosa of the ages. The cross of Calvary was, indeed, “The centre of two eternities Which stand with rapt adoring eyes.”

How varied and inexpressibly delightful are the many references to the walk of Jesus here in His lovely Manhood! John Baptist looked upon Jesus as He walked, and said "Behold the Lamb of God" (John 1:36). This, and verse 29 of the same chapter, are the only references to the Lamb of God in the gospels, but His every step, in Galilee, in Judea, in the Garden, at the Judgment Hall, and supremely the Via Dolorosa, as the precious holy Lamb of God moved to the cross would express the hidden depth of this unique expression — the Lamb of God. With adoring hearts, and yet with unshod feet, we hear the words of He who is the "I AM" saying in wondrous grace as He gave Himself for us, "If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way." In love He was led

Verse 1. "Jesus having said these things, went out with his disciples beyond the torrent Cedron, where was a garden, into which he entered, he and his disciples." "The king also himself passed over the brook Kidron … and David went up by the ascent of mount Olivet, and wept as he went." Jesus and David, each in rejection, found it a via dolorosa, a path of sorrow indeed! The outward path here was the same, but there the resemblance ceased.

But that was only the beginning of the treachery and insult, and unparalleled cruelty that He had to suffer. Who can describe the road that He trod from the garden to the high priest's house, and from there to the court of Pilate, mocked by Jew and Gentile, beaten, spit upon, scourged, crowned with thorns and condemned to die, until at last, with a cross upon His shoulders He reached the garden again? The garden of the cross may not have been the garden of the betrayal, but this we know, for the Scripture tells us, that "in the place where He was crucified there was a garden" (John 19:41).

On the Way to Golgotha. — Now again have we to notice the independence of our historian as he takes his readers from Gabbatha (John 19:13) to Golgotha (Matt. 27:33), and relates what took place by the way. The procession, as we might call it, consisted of the Lord, bearing His cross, with Simon the Cyrenian, bearing by compulsion (Mark 15:21) the lighter end of it behind Him (Luke 23:26). Two others, malefactors, doubtless bearing also each one his own cross, formed part of the group, the attendant soldiers completing it. But far outnumbering these who figured in the procession was a great multitude of the people, and among them many women. These last bewailed and lamented Him (Luke 23:27), all their sympathy, it seems, being extended to Him, but none to the others who were about to suffer for their crimes, for all knew He was innocent. As they moved along the wailing might have been heard probably at some distance. But now words fell from His lips — prophetic words — and Luke has preserved them: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry" (vers. 28-31). His death, He here intimated, would be followed by the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (21:23), and by the troubles that will yet fall on that nation and that city (Matt. 24:15-21). Messiah, the Shepherd of Israel, cut off, the Jews have had, and will yet have to feel bitterly His absence in their hours of trial who alone can shield them. And having cut Him off by death, they must of necessity wait God's time and grace for His return.

The Crucifixion. — Reaching the place called in the Hebrew, or rather Aramaic, Golgotha as Luke explains the name, the place of a skull, probably from some resemblance to one — there they crucified the Lord, and the two thieves with Him. The place was situated outside the city (Heb. 13:12; John 19:17, 20; Matt. 28:11), and near a garden (John 19:41). And now, reading Luke's account of the Crucifixion, the most cursory reader must be struck with its difference from that of the others. Four accounts of it we have, each evangelist describing it, and though Matthew and Mark agree very much in their relation, the former tells what the latter does not, and thus presents the darkest picture of them all. In Matthew men's hatred of Christ and their treatment of Him come out in the fullest way, that taunt of the chief priests of which Psalm 22:8 had forespoken being found only in his history. Then, too, from the time that the Lord owned to Pilate that He was the King of the Jews (27:11) till He cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani" (ver. 46), that evangelist has recorded no utterance from His lips. Nothing in all that part of Matthew's gospel comes in to relieve the darkness and gloom of the scene. In John it is different. Presenting the Lord as a Divine Person, we see Him in all the calmness of One who knew whence He was, providing for His mother, and caring for the fulfilment of every word of God. In Luke it is the Man Christ Jesus who suffers, but the One who shows grace even on the cross. Hence we have the Lord opening His mouth in words which told of grace, the dark picture of the Crucifixion thus lightened by sayings with which all Bible readers are now familiar.

The Jews are not allowed in the Temple area, therefore they assemble on a spot near Robinson's arch, called the JEWS' WAILING PLACE, where they can approach the walls of the area which are built of very large and ancient stones. On Fridays and feast days they assemble in numbers; they kiss the stones and weep, and pray for the restoration of their city and temple, being, alas, still blind to the only true way of blessing through the Lord Jesus whom they crucified.

The Christian population gave names to the streets, and point out traditional sites of many events recorded in scripture, but of course without the slightest authority. Of these arbitrary identifications the one that appears the most improbable is that of the CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, said to cover the spots where the Lord was crucified and where He was buried, which is within the city. See CALVARY.

The Greek is κρανίον, 'a skull.' The word 'Calvary' is from the Latin Calvaria, having a like signification; agreeing also with the Hebrew GOLGOTHA, which has the same meaning. Matt. 27:33; Luke 23:33. The place where the Lord was crucified, and near to which the tomb was situated in which He was buried. The traditional site of the Holy Sepulchre is now well within the city of Jerusalem, and great efforts have been made to prove that this spot was at that time outside the city, but this is not at all credible. A much more probable place is that pointed out by the Jews on the north of the city, near the Grotto of Jeremiah. Visitors have declared that this site has, at a distance, the natural contour of a human skull. It would have been near the city yet outside it, and near also to where there could have been a garden, in which a tomb could have been cut. It is also a spot from whence the crucifixion could have been seen by the passers-by (on the road from the Damascus gate). This site has therefore several points in its favour.

The actual place is however unknown; and doubtless God has so ordered it that it should not be made an object of idolatry, or turned into a holy shrine, over which there would have been great contention, as there has been, with bloodshed too, over the so-called Holy Sepulchre.

In what direction then it was, with reference to the holy city, there is no doubt. But it is questioned whether the chief traditional site by the Latin Convent is really the spot. Porter, in his Giant Cities of Bashan, p. 160, writes, as one who knows well that site: "Eight venerable olive trees rivet our attention. They are real patriarchs their huge trunks are rent, hollowed, gnarled, and propped up, and their boughs hoary with age. They seem old enough, and probably are old enough, to have formed an arbour for Jesus. How often have I sat on a rocky bank in that garden! How often, beneath the grateful shade of the old olives, have I read and re-read the story of the Betrayal! How often have I fondly lingered there far on into the still night, when the city above was hushed in sleep, and no sound was heard save the sighing of the breeze among the olive branches, thinking and thinking on those miracles of love and power which He performed there!" In Porter's judgment this spot may have been the real Gethsemane.

Dean Stanley, in Sinai and Palestine, new edition, p. 455, writes of this traditional site with which are connected the grotto of the Agony, the rocky bank of the three Apostles, the "terra damnata" of the Betrayal, that "in spite of all the doubts that can be raised against their antiquity or the genuineness of their site, the eight aged olive trees, if only by their manifest difference from all others on the mountain, have always struck even the most indifferent observers. They are now indeed less striking in the modern garden enclosure built round them by the Franciscan monks, than when they stood free and unprotected on the rough hill side; but they will remain, so long as their already protracted life is spared, the most venerable of their race on the surface of the earth; their gnarled trunks and scanty foliage will always be regarded as the most affecting of the sacred memorials in or about Jerusalem; the most nearly approaching to the everlasting hills themselves, in the force with which they carry us back to the events of the Gospel history."

Thus far these two writers, both personally acquainted with this spot, have written about it. Other sites are contended for. The Armenian Christians have selected one a little to the north of it. And some have located it farther up the valley, and to the north of the Church of St. Mary. But those ancient and venerable trees give a prestige to the garden of the Latin Convent, and will, till the exact spot, if it be elsewhere, can be really identified. For the general reader it is, however, sufficient to know the landmarks given us in the Gospels by Luke and by John. To the Mount of Olives the Lord frequently retired, and to that garden He often resorted, so John informs us (18:2). Probably the garden was owned or tenanted by some disciple, as was the case, it would seem, with the upper room. But though often visited by the Lord (so Judas knew where he would find Him), we have no mention of it after that night of the Agony. It was clearly not the mind of the Holy Ghost to have the holy places, as they are called, for ever identified. God, who buried the body of Moses, so that no man knew of his sepulchre, has not seen fit to authenticate by reliable tradition places in the Holy Land specially connected with the life and even death of the Lord. The stable at Bethlehem, the house at Nazareth, as well as the place of the Crucifixion, and even the new tomb hewn by Joseph out of the rock, whatever tradition may assert, are places still lacking verification. Occupation with holy places on earth is foreign to the spirit of Christianity, of which the only holy Temple on earth is composed either locally of all professing Christians in any one place (1 Cor. 3:17), or generally of the whole company of professing Christians alive here at any one time (2 Cor. 6:16).*

We have considered His goings forth in the Garden, as recorded in chapter 18; they continue here; not only did He come forth wearing the crown of thorns, but in verse 17 we read "He bearing His cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew, Golgotha. Pilate had his part in this for it is said, "Then delivered he Him to them to be crucified, " and in that act the culpability of the time-serving judge reached its climax, "And they took Jesus and led Him away" and in that the greater guilt of the Jews was consummated; but the injustice of Pilate and the frenzied hatred of the Jews could not have brought the Lord of glory to Golgotha. "He went forth bearing His cross." He offered Himself without spot to God. He had said to God, His Father, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God." And to His disciples He had said, "That the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence." That "hence" had been reached at last, and without hesitation or haste He went forth bearing His cross. This was their hour, but it was His also, for "now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him." There was a dignity that belongs not to earth about that lone Figure. Here was MAN after God's own heart, bearing man's inhumanity to its utmost limit without resentment or retaliation, and bending His bruised and bleeding back to the cross because it was the will of God. His form was scarred and His visage marred, and a lewd and mocking rabble followed Him through the gates of David's city to Golgotha, yet a glory shone forth in Him in that hour that will abide for ever. That going forth was the march of a King to His coronation and triumph.

Through the streets of Jerusalem is a sad procession: a Man, bearing a heavy cross, on the way to be crucified, and at His heels a frenzied rabble. Women rend the air with their lamentations. Strange things happen that day. At noonday, when the sun is at its highest, darkness fills the whole land. What is the meaning of it?