I want to begin with a fascinating story from the Middle Ages. It is about a pope named Gregory and a king named Henry IV of Germany. In those days popes not only had ecclesiastical power but political power as well. In a dramatic move, Pope Gregory excommunicated King Henry IV when he insisted on divorcing his wife Bertha of Savoy. This was not only devastating to Henry spiritually, but politically, for this made Henry ineligible to sit on the throne of Germany.

The king, who well knew what the pope expected out of him, came to Rome to do penance and to seek absolution. He found that the pope was away in the mountains. And so, during the harsh winter of 1077, King Henry IV and his servants made a long and dangerous journey through the snowy mountains of northern Italy to meet with the Pope. They met in a small town called Canossa in the mountains of northern Italy.

When Henry and his retinue arrived, the pope humiliated Henry further by making him wait in the bitter cold for three days before finally agreeing to see him. Reliable accounts state that when Henry was finally permitted to enter the gates, he walked barefoot through the snow and knelt at the feet of the pope to beg forgiveness. As a result, the Pope granted him absolution.

Contrast what Henry IV did to obtain absolution for his sins and what you and I were forced to do to obtain our salvation. It is not we who make a journey to a remote place in order to satisfy God. It is not we who stand cap in hand waiting to be recognized, seeking to be brought in out of the cold, longing to be forgiven. In Jesus Christ it is God who has made this journey in our behalf. 

The poet writes, “I sought the Lord and afterward I knew, he moved my heart to seek him, seeking me . . .” The journey of salvation is not our journey but Christ’s. He is the pilgrim--the pioneer, as the writer of Hebrews put it. It is he who walked the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering. It is by his initiative that we are saved, not our own. 

The journey of salvation begins in a garden called Gethsemane. That is, of course, the place where Jesus went to pray on that climactic night when he was betrayed. Jesus withdrew a stone’s throw from his disciples, knelt down and began to pray, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:41-42). Luke tells us that Jesus’ agony was so great that his sweat became like great drops of blood falling upon the ground. 

You and I have had our Gethsemanes, haven’t we? Anybody who has ever sought to do God’s will has wrestled with difficult decisions. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to make a commitment to a style of living that involves personal sacrifice. It involves our time, our personal resources. It could even require our lives. 

History is filled with stories of personal Gethsemanes where persons have been willing because of their commitment to Christ to pay the ultimate price. 

Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane over a decision only he could make. When he came back to his disciples he found them sleeping. How human that is. Some of us may be sleeping while someone very close to us is agonizing over a deep and potentially devastating decision, and we are not even aware of it.

While Jesus is still speaking to his disciples, there comes a crowd of men into the garden. One of them is Judas. It is with a kiss that Judas betrays Jesus. I suppose this event exposes evil at its ugliest. An enemy can be confronted, but when it is somebody you trust who stabs you in the back, when a kiss becomes the instrument of betrayal, when darkness masquerades as light, that is when we see how twisted the human spirit can become. 

The soldiers take Jesus and scourge him. They weave a crown of thorns and place it upon his head. Someone finds a discarded purple robe and they place it around his shoulders. In an attempt to humiliate and debase him further they salute him and kneel down in mock homage before him crying, “Hail, King of the Jews.” And they strike his head with a reed and spit upon him. 

Nearby is another troubled figure who also has a decision to make. It is Pontius Pilate. He has examined Jesus and found no evidence that he has committed any crime.

Even more disquieting, Pilate’s wife has had a dream about Jesus that has greatly disturbed her. “Have nothing to do with this man,” she warns her husband.

Pilate is facing his Gethsemane now. But Pilate is not a man of courage or conviction. He fails the test. He has Jesus brought out and set on a judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, which in Hebrew is called Gabbatha. That is the second landmark on our journey of salvation that we need to recall.

First Gethsemane, then Gabbatha. It was here that Pilate washed his hands of Jesus. Don’t we wish that it was that easy to absolve ourselves of responsibility for evil? Pilate offers the crowd a choice between Jesus and a well-known insurrectionist named Barrabas.

“Give us Barrabas,” the crowd screams.

“What shall I do with this one who is called the King of the Jews?” Pilate asks.

“Crucify him. Crucify him.” The mob chants with frightening intensity. 

Even the nails of the cross could not have pierced Jesus’ soul like the chants of the mob. These were his own people. This was his beloved Israel. These were God’s chosen people. Now they were screaming, “Crucify him. Crucify him.” 

Rejection always hurts. All of us want to be recognized and appreciated. Of course, rejection is part of life. We know we cannot please all the people all of the time. Sometimes we can’t please anybody.

A retired man tells how he always used to go to the old Bill Meyer Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, to watch the city’s minor league team play baseball. He says that there was an old man at the stadium who never missed a game. He would sit in the same seat each game and invariably he would offer the same chant. Whenever a Knoxville player came up to bat he would yell, “Walk him, pitcher, walk him.”

If the pitcher should walk the batter, then the old man would yell triumphantly, “You walked the wrong man, pitcher, you walked the wrong man.” 

Sometimes no matter what you do, you can’t win. I like the attitude of George Whitefield, the great evangelist who worked with John and Charles Wesley. 

Whitefield once received a letter that spitefully accused him of assorted wrongdoings in his ministry. Whitefield returned a brief, courteous reply that stands as an example to anyone who is judged and accused by others:  “I thank you heartily for your letter,” he wrote. “As for what you and my other enemies are saying against me, I know worse things about myself than you will ever say about me. With love in Christ, George Whitefield.” 

Of course, Jesus knew he had done no wrong. But there he sat rejected by his own people at a place called Gabbatha. But Gabbatha is not the end of our journey. 

From Gabbatha our story moves to the third stop on the journey of salvation. It is, as you have already guessed, a hill called Golgotha--the place of the skull. The soldiers compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, to carry Jesus’ cross. Reaching the top of the hill, they nailed his hands and feet to the crude wood.

They offered him wine mingled with myrrh but he did not drink it. They stripped him of his garments and hung him on a cross between two thieves. They gambled for his garments at the foot of the cross and passersby taunted him saying, “Aha! you who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross.” The chief priest and scribes joined in, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” 

Gethsemane--Gabbatha--now Golgotha. “Father, forgive them,” he prays, “for they know not what they do.” The impact of his death would never be forgotten by his disciples.

There is a legend about Simon Peter. When the persecution of Christians by Nero was at its height, Simon Peter was urged by other Christians to flee from Rome. Since discretion is usually the better part of valor, Simon Peter complied with their wishes. But as he was fleeing the city he encountered a mysterious figure! As the person drew nearer, he recognized Jesus, and said to him in Latin, “Quo vadis, Domine?” (“Where are you going, Lord?”). 

Back came the answer: “I am going to Rome to be crucified again, because my servant Peter is leaving the church.” 

With tears of repentance and shame, Peter turned back to Rome and went to his death. The death of Christ had a tremendous impact on his disciples. It still has an impact on thoughtful persons today. 

How can you and I live such mediocre lives in the light of what Christ has done for us? 

He hangs on the cross for six hours. So great is his agony that he cries out, “E’lo-i, E’lo-i, ma sabach-tha-ni?” which means, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Only a person who has experienced such physical and emotional pain can properly empathize with such a plaintive utterance. Then suddenly there is a loud cry, and the struggle is over. A centurion who watches him die is heard to exclaim, “Truly, this man was a son of God.”

But fortunately the story does not end at Golgotha. There was near the place he was crucified a garden (John 19:41). In that garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever lain. It was in that tomb late on a Friday evening that they placed the body of Jesus. 

The following Sunday morning, just before the sunrise, some women came to the tomb to anoint the body with spices as was their custom. But the stone was rolled away from the tomb. The body was gone. Two men stood by them in dazzling apparel and said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5). Soon the news traveled throughout the region, “He is alive. He is alive.” 

Such rumors have been spread about other men. I understand that the coffin of Abraham Lincoln was pried open twice after his death. The first time was 1887, twenty-two years after his assassination. Fourteen years later the grisly deed was repeated.

Both times the rumor had spread that Lincoln was not really dead. The rumors took on so much credibility that it became important to government officials to prove them false.

Such rumors have popped up throughout history concerning famous people. The difference in the instance of Jesus was that he began making appearances to his disciples. So dramatic were these appearances that the lives of those who experienced them were turned upside down. 

There were the scars in his hands, his feet, and his side. “My Lord and my God,” cried doubting Thomas. It was incredible, but it was true. “He is alive.” 

He is alive and because he is alive, we can live too. The journey of salvation. Gethsemane where he wrestled with the mission for which God had sent him--Gabbatha where he was rejected by his own people--Golgotha where, by his death, he reconciled the world unto God--and the garden tomb where God resurrected him to live forever in the hearts and lives of those who know him to be the Christ. Where does that leave us?

St. Paul gives us a clue when he writes, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).

So, the last stop on the journey of salvation is our town as we seek to tell the good news, as we seek to make disciples of all men and women, as we seek to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ.  For you see, the story is not over. The process still goes on and it will go on until the day comes when every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.