Were You There?

"They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha... And they crucified him." 

Mark 15:22, 24

From the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi,
Santa Fe, New Mexico

No stories today. No tales of Scotland. No memories of our trips to Colorado. No glorious sunrise or sunset or moon pictures. Certainly no flowers.

Not today.

Because today is Friday. The day they crucified our Lord.

Today is a day of somber reflection of our sin, and of God's love. today is a reflection that what happened on Calvary HAD to happen, for our salvation and our reconciliation with God.

In our hymnal, the hymns for Christ's crucifixion carry a somber mood to them. Beautiful music, to be sure--and in the end, the cross becomes a beautiful thing. But somber, as well--deeply, gravely somber, because the cross was a horrible, tragic necessity.

One of the hymns that we sing in our Good Friday service at church is, "Were You There". It is a song that takes us to Calvary and, through the persistent asking of the question, "Were you there?", it holds us firmly at the foot of the Cross.

Where you there when they crucified my Lord? It's a rhetorical question, because the implied answer is, Yes.

Yes, you were there. We were there.

You see, what happened on Calvary was more than simply an historical event that occurred in a particular time and place. What happened on Calvary was the unfolding of the great divine drama in which God is acting to reconcile a rebellious human race to him through the sacrificial death of his Son. The cross is the intersection of both our stubborn and persistent rebellion against God and rejection of God, and God's loving redemption of us.

On Good Friday we include in our liturgy a litany called the Solemn Reproaches of the Cross. The reproaches are a reminder that God is infinite in his goodness toward us, yet we have repaid his goodness with rejection and disdain and scorn. Through the liturgy we are taken on a journey through the biblical narrative, reminded of God's goodness and grace and compassion and deliverance and mercy, and also reminded of our own propensity to turn away from God at every opportunity.

From the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi,
Santa Fe, New Mexico

"O my people, O my church, what have I done to you, or in what have I offended you? Answer me. I led you forth from the land of Egypt and delivered you by the waters of baptism, but you have prepared a cross for your Savior."

"I went before you in a pillar of cloud, and you have led me to the judgment hall of Pilate. I scourged your enemies and brought you to a land of freedom, but you have scourged, mocked, and beaten me. I gave you the water of salvation from the rock, but you have given me gall and left me to thirst. And you have prepared a cross for your Savior."

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

"What more could I have done for you that I have not done? I planted you, my chosen and fairest vineyard, and I made you the branches of my vine. But when I was thirsty you gave me vinegar to drink and pierced with a spear the side of your Savior. And you have prepared a cross for your Savior."

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 laid him in the tomb?

Yes, we were there.

We were there in Judas, betraying our friend for a few pieces of silver. We were there in Peter, too afraid to own up to our love of the man who was being put on trial. We were there in the Roman soldiers who flogged Jesus with the cat-o-nine-tails and who beat Jesus and who mocked him with a purple robe and a crown of thorns. We were there in the person of Pilate as the reluctant instrument by which Jesus would be legally but unjustly put to death. We were there in the crowd that had been whipped into hysteria and cried "Crucify! Crucify!" We were there in the anonymous executioners who pounded the nails in the hands and feet of Jesus and who raised him up on the cross. We were there in his mother Mary as she looked on in horror at her son dying on the cross. We were there in his beloved disciple John, agreeing to care for the mother of the man on the cross. We were there in the soldier who pierced him in the side to determine that Jesus was dead. We were there in the Roman centurion who whispered in awe, "Surely this man was the Son of God." We were there in Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus, asking permission to give Jesus a proper burial.

We were there.

We were there.

Because the cross is the place where the Son of God met all the sin, the hurt, the brokenness, the fear, the despair of the human race, and he took it all upon himself.

The cross happened because of us. We were there.

But the cross also happened FOR us.

"Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we, free from sins, might live for righteousness; by his wounds we have been healed." (1 Peter 2:24)

From the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi,
Santa Fe, New Mexico

It was a dark, dark day indeed. And we were there.

But here's the deal: So was God. God was there.

We were there, and God was there.

And that, my friends, is why the Friday of the cross is called "Good."






Excerpts from the Solemn Reproaches of the Cross are taken from the Book of Common Worship (Louisville: Westminster / John Knox Press, 1993)