Were you there?

"Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"  I've always thought that was a strange question.  No, silly, I wasn't born, yet.  Of course I wasn't there.  As I've sung that song countless times through the years, I've always just tried to ignore the question aspect of the song and focus upon the details of the crucifixion of Jesus which the song skillfully recounts.  Then I try to be so focused that I can effectively and appropriately "tremble."   I'm not always successful, though.  Maybe the author of the song wasn't, either - after all, it says "sometimes it causes me to tremble."

It wasn't until today that I finally got it.  I think of myself as a smart person, but it would seem that I've been quite dense when it comes to this.  At noon, my daughter was napping and I was in her playroom reading the Scriptures and praying.  When I heard the church bell chime in the distance, in honor of Good Friday, I put down the Bible in a respectful silence.  I suddenly felt led to sing "Were you there..."  I don't really like that song because, like I said, I think the question part is so annoyingly weird, but not wanting to disobey a prompting from the Holy Spirit, I began to sing.  

The question hit me like never before.  "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"  No, I wasn't.  Like the other disciples, I abandoned him last night.  I was at the Maundy Thursday service with my daughter, but she got a little chatty and we had to leave.  I was so mad.  Not so much at her - she was behaving like a normal 18 month old - but at some of the people in this church who have been so unkind, so unwelcoming, so outright mean to me and my daughter since we arrived.  But even though I wasn't mad at my daughter, she was the only one present once we left, and so it came out at her.  I was short and snappy and unkind, myself.  I knew better - I thought, "Control yourself!"  But I felt like I had such a good reason to be mad that I chose the unfaithful route.  It wasn't until later in the evening when I "heard the rooster crow" and realized that, despite my best desires and intentions, I, too, had abandoned Jesus.  Then all this morning as I continuously would draw my mind back to the cross, my mind would immediately get dragged back away.  I chose thoughts that tickled my vanity, stroked my pride, and filled me with temporary delight.  Sure, I tried, but habits of the mind are no small force.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?  I wanted to be.  I tried to be... sort of.  I was following him to the cross, but I only made it halfway.  Rather than dwell in the glory of the invisible, my mind chose over and over again the visible, temporary images before it.  I didn't choose the cross.  That, in response to the question of the song, causes me to "tremble."  

This is such a good day - we receive such grace today.  Were you there - really, fully there - to receive it?  Thank God that despite the absence of many of his disciples, two thousand years ago and today, he did it for us, anyway.

Thanks be to God!