HAT DOES “The Mystery of
Golgotha” have to do with a person
living in the 21st century? Some
allege it to be an historical fiction.
What are the facts? Surviving
accounts, known as Christian Gospels, describe a puta-
tive capital offense ending in a crucifixion: Rough jus-
tice, barbarity, tragedy, pathos—depending on your
viewpoint. And the viewpoints abound. Then what?
Earthquake? Night at noon? Global transformation?
Today’s positivist asks, How can we know for sure
what happened? the identity of him to whom it hap-
pened—if it happened? No extant secular records even
make reference to Jesus—him who was crucified. Over
a billion humans call this same Jesus the Son of God,
God incarnate, the world’s Savior—Him who couldn’t
save himself—at least, he didn’t. Not your standard
hero-god who carries a big stick. This God carried a
cross and was nailed to it. What’s to imitate here?
What’s so compelling about this story that human des-
tiny has been altered by it? What’s in this to feed the
soul and give joy? Well, there’s more to the story. For
one thing, a few of “God’s” contemporaries saw Him
after His death—alive, radiant, powerful. Come to
think of it, he said, destroy this temple and he would
raise it in three days. Apparently that’s what he did.
And what was raised? The Spirit that animated Jesus
and spoke through him with authority and worked mir-
acles and walked on water and wept salt tears and shed
blood. Today’s emancipated humanist can weep too,
and speak and walk and bleed. But to him this talk of
Spirit is, to be polite, scientifically suspect. Yet that’s
what the Jesus people—Christians—believe. Some
would even die rather than renounce their core belief.
And Rosicrucians believe more, some of them know
more. They say Golgotha is a mystery only to those
who are blind to the higher dimensions of reality, that
Spirit is real. It exists. It is in each of us. It enables us,
like Christ Jesus, to survive death. It is this Spirit that
makes us human. More, it can make us divine, like God
who gave it. These Rosicrucians say that Christ is high-
er than a human Spirit, that because He came to Earth
on a mission of mercy and lived in Jesus, humans can
also do the works He did, and even greater.
But this Rosicrucian “teaching” is all hearsay, right?
Where’s the proof? How about some incontrovertible
truth? By “truth” do you mean according to scales and
rulers, or based on lived experience? Paul was assault-
ed, stunned, and blinded by the Truth: vengeance was
transmuted into candescent love. But that’s an antique
narrative. How about now? Now is a keyhole into all
time—and the timeless. Insert the key of truth, call it
provisional truth, if you like, and turn it in the lock of
ignorance. First, suspend your disbelief, because not
believing gets zero results. You are welcome to doubt,
to call all into question, to believe only what your senses
tell you. But are your senses your only basis for know-
ing? Doesn’t something behind your eyes see deeper—
and other? Doesn’t a hearing more inner than sound
through the ears give you understanding, a finer and
higher sense of things? Call it eyes and ears of the soul.
Material Earth is the place of the skull. It is Golgotha.
There is also a living Earth, an Earth of soul and an
Earth of Spirit. It is here, even where crucifixion in
countless forms continues, where eyes are blinded by
hate and envy and ears are deaf to words of grace and
love and mercy.
It is not gravity that makes Spring possible. It is not
electricity that generates vital light. It is not chemicals
that produce life. By all means weigh and measure and
number the mineral world. Be exacting. But if that is
your sole guaranty of certainty, Spirit will remain mys-
terious, even as it makes all things new. And joy will be
out reach, though ever ready, if you will, to exalt you.
And life will remain elusive, even as it daily renews
you and gives you reason to hope. And the empty tomb
will be a hoax, even as Christ irradiates the Earth and
knocks at the door of your heart.
❐