Spectators at the Cross Author:John R. Rice THE PHARISEES SAT down to watch Jesus die. All that long, bitter day the multitudes who had assembled at Jerusalem for the Passover season crowded about that little hill called ?Golgotha? ? the place of a skull ? to see the spectacle of Jesus Christ, God?s Son, dying between two thieves on a Roman cross. Jews and Gentiles, Pharisees, Sadducees, ... more »members of the Sanhedrin, Jew¬ish scribes and doctors of the law, the brutal soldiers, the raging mob, multiplied thousands representing all humanity, watched Jesus die. Roman captains and soldiers, governors, and the mob of common people, mocking, laughing, weeping, awe-smitten, watched Jesus die. Saints and sinners mingled as that greatest event in human history took place. The weeping mother of Jesus, the beloved disciple John, Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathaea, and other wayward disciples watched Jesus die, as did Pilate and the centurion and the soldiers and the mob and the dying thieves. A cross section of all the human race, representing every man, woman, and child who should ever be born, was there to see Jesus die.« less