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(Holy Friday)
Psalm 31:9–16; Isaiah 54:9–10; Hebrews 2:10–18
Were You There?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? (Were you there?)
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree? (to the tree)
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
Were you there when they pierced Him in the side? (in the side)
Were you there when they pierced Him in the side? Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they pierced Him in the side
Were you there when the sun refused to shine? (were you there?)
Were you there when the sun refused to shine? Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when the sun refused to shine?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? (in the tomb?)
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? (Oh!)
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
—Songs of Zion, 87
We were not there, historically. But this spiritual takes us there, to the
place of grotesque suffering and the death of the Christ. They crucified
him. Nailed him. Pierced him. The sun refused to shine because the
Light of the world was murdered and laid in a tomb, dead. It should
make us tremble, tremble, tremble, if we sit with it, if we ponder it, if
we allow ourselves to go there.
I realize some don’t like to go there. They want a bleached Christ who
has no blood, no pain, no misery. They want a triumphant Christ
without a cross, but the wounds of the crucifixion will not be erased by
the resurrection. This is the truth. And it should make us tremble—that
the religious and civic leaders killed God in Christ and at that moment it
looked like the Savior needed to be saved.
Ponder what all of this means to you. Don’t shy away from the cross.
Go there and view his bruised and bloodied body. Go there and see
God hanging from a tree. Go there and learn from this suffering God.
Go there and tremble. Tremble before this terror. Tremble before the
One who was torn apart for you. Tremble at this kind of cruciform love.
Were you there? I hope you will go there.
Prayer for the Day
Without the sun shining, without your light, today, I tremble because I
am there at the foot of the cross.
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