SOME while ago, a little girl, eight years old and known to the writer, attended some special gospel services in South Africa. The preacher asked the question frequently in the preaching, "Have you ever been to Calvary?” On getting home the girl was anxious to know where Calvary was and what the question meant. Her mother asked her brother, who was older, to read the Bible to her and to make it plain. At first she could not understand, but at last came to the conclusion that Calvary is a place which you must pass on the way to heaven.
Now if you look for a place called heaven on a map, you will not find it there; but Calvary is a place outside Jerusalem and you will find Jerusalem on the map of Palestine. Why then should she think that you must pass Calvary on the way to heaven? Can no one get to heaven from London or Cape town without going to Calvary near Jerusalem?
It would be very hard on us all if this were so, because few people could afford the time or money to go to Jerusalem. I wonder what the girl's school teacher would have said and what marks she would have given her if that was the answer she gave in a geography lesson!
But her answer was not meant for the geography lesson; it had a deeper meaning. Calvary was the place where the Lord Jesus was crucified. It was also called Golgotha, and both words in two different languages mean a skull. The Lord Jesus died at that place, and why? He had never done anything wrong, and thus need not have died; but He died for the sins of others. He bore our sins in His Own body on the tree. He was buried, but on the third day He rose again, and He is now a living Savior for old and young in heaven.
Do you want to be with Him one day? Then you must go to Calvary in your thoughts to learn what He did for you there. You could not put away your own sins, but His death was sufficient to deal with them fully. If you—in all your need—turn to Him as a living Savior in heaven, you will learn the value of His death.
Calvary is the place where He showed the love of God to men. Calvary is the place where He showed His own love to His own people, and Calvary is the place where we see how God hates sin and deals with it.
If we learn this for ourselves, we shall see what is meant in what the little girl said—Calvary is a place which you must pass on the way to heaven.
A. A. E.