T.C.

Up on Broadway, where Harlem ends and Washington Heights begins, stands an old white building with bright green trim. It was boarded up and covered with graffiti when I first saw it. Over the years, it has become even more run-down.

It sits in a busy neighborhood. You can hear different languages spoken on the street-Yiddish, Spanish, English, Korean. Across Broadway is the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, one of the world's great hospitals. The old building (it was built in 1912) is called the Audubon Ballroom. An abandoned building seems out of place in this busy neighborhood.

Over one of the doors, some one has scrawled, "Malcolm X lives!" If you saw it, you would not think much about it. After all, there are probably a hundred old walls around the city with the same words on them. But you would be wrong. That scrawled graffitum is the only sign of the famous assassination that happened in this building.

When President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Malcolm X said, "The chickens have come home to roost." He made many enemies with that statement. The chickens came home to roost for Malcolm fifteen months later. On the night of February 21, 1965, while he was giving a speech in the Audubon Ballroom, he was shot dead. It has never been clear who was behind his killing; some people say his enemies, the Black Muslims, were responsible. The Audubon Ballroom closed that night. It never reopened. The few people who have been in it since it closed say you can still see his blood on the floor.

By the time you read this, the Audubon Ballroom will be gone. Columbia University, which owns the building, is building a new laboratory, the Audubon Research Center, in its place. Some people are upset, but it is too late to save the Ballroom now.

The place where King Saul of Israel died was forgotten as well. All that is known is that he died somewhere on Mount Gilboa. No one marked the spot where he died.

In the city of Jerusalem, two different places are shown to tourists as Calvary. Actually, though, no one knows for sure which of them is Calvary, or even if either of them is. No one marked the spot where Christ died.

Malcolm X is well-remembered now, but in years to come he will be just another name in the history books. Saul is remembered today, even after thousands of years. If Saul's name were not in the Bible, though, no one would remember him now.

It is not that way with the Lord Jesus Christ. Men may not have marked the place where He died, but even after two thousand years they haven't forgotten that he died. His death isn't a story for the history books. For millions of people, it is the most important event in the world. They say, He didn't just die at Calvary, they say "He died for me." When time has ended, and there are no more history books; when there is a new earth, and all the old places are gone; they will never forget how Christ died on Calvary, to take away their sins.