Were You There?

Holy Week deserves a host of posts with moving sacred music, scripture passages, and reflection on our relationship with God. But Melany and I have been out of town most of this week, so until this afternoon I haven't been able to sit down, collect my thoughts, and gather resources for a post. So, this one will be brief--but I hope, will help the reader discern what the profound events commemorated this week mean.

Easter, of course, is the glorious Day of Victory, when Christ's Resurrection spelled the doom of evil and death forever, and threw open the gates of Heaven to all who would sincerely confess their sins and embrace the Lord as Savior. But that victory, and the forgiveness of our sins, was won at the most terrible price--the inexpressible suffering and death of the One who was most perfectly innocent of all sin, who knew and loved us, and sacrificed His own life for every one of us, while we were yet sinners and knew Him not. As the prophet Isaiah wrote hundreds of years before Jesus was even born into this world:

[H]e hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. ~ Isaiah 53:2-6

As I was listening to my favorite Serenity Radio station on Pandora the other day (scroll down the list under Pandora in the right sidebar and click the link to listen to it yourself!), I heard a most beautiful rendition of the African-American spiritual Were You There? by the late, great Kate Smith. The clarity and power of her voice made me attend to this familiar hymn like I never had before, and reflect carefully on its compelling words:

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
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?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Oh!
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?
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 they laid him 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?

As I listened, I knew deep in my heart what the answer to the hymn's question was: yes, I was there. My sins were the reason for His suffering; He was nailed to the tree and pierced in His side for my wrongdoing; and He bore death, freely and lovingly, so I wouldn't have to. He carried all my failures into His tomb. But Glory and Hosanna, He left them there on the glorious morning of His Resurrection!

Alas, I couldn't find a video version of Kate Smith's rendition. But I did find two other very different, yet both very moving, versions. The first is a solo performance by Deborah Liv Johnson featuring a beautiful collection of family pictures that remind that we were all "there."



The second version is quite unique, performed by what's billed as "The Largest Ever Male Voice Choir In Wales," filling an entire arena!



May I remember in humble contrition, every day, that I WAS there when "they"--with my help--crucified my Lord. And may I humbly and firmly resolve, every day, to be thankful for His forgiveness and to so live that He wouldn't have to endure it again.