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“Were
you there when they crucified my Lord?”
Were you
there? Were you there on that fateful day? Were you there on
that day when God was doing something new, something
unprecedented, something to the whole of humanity?
“Were
you there when the crucified my Lord?”
There is
rarely a Good Friday that goes by when this song is not sung.
It is an old song, a song born out of the African experience
of captivity in this country. Its haunting melody and pointed
honesty make it clear that this song was born out of the
reality of real-life anguish and suffering.
The slaves who first sang this song knew what it meant
to tremble…to tremble in the face of injustice…to tremble
at the seemingly hopeless situation they endured…to tremble
at the likelihood of a life of immense torment and premature
death. They sang this song with a haunting realism because,
even though time may have separated them from the events of
Calvary that Friday afternoon two millennia ago, their own
real-life experiences of suffering and death put them at the
foot of the cross in ways few of us can even begin to imagine.
This song
is haunting to us. It is haunting because it begs the
question, “Were you there?” It pushes us to enter into the
story. It asks us to be there…to get there…to stand
there…to be present there…to witness what happens there.
It reminds us that we can’t just gather here this afternoon
and sing a few songs, say a few prayers, read a few lines, and
be on our way to all the wonderful trappings of Easter Sunday.
You see, you can’t get there if you haven’t been here. No,
the truth of this old slave spiritual stands between us and
what awaits us and says, “If you want to get to Easter—if
you want to dance around the empty tomb—you have to answer
the question: Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”
The truth of the spiritual reminds us that there can be no
real celebration of Easter without an honest confrontation
with the cross.
This
year, more of us than ever might be able to answer that
question in a different way because of the movie, The
Passion of the Christ. Due to the realism and graphic
nature of the film, we might actually feel we were there when
they crucified our Lord. Say what you want about the film, but
I must confess that for all the fears I had about the
liberties it might take with the life and death of the One who
stands at the apex of history for me and for Christians, the
film has put the issues of our faith at the forefront of
American culture in ways I have never experienced in my young
life. In the past four weeks, I have had more meaningful
conversations about Jesus, his life, the significance of his
death, and the reason why it still matters some two thousand
years later, than I have ever had before in my life. I have
had conversations with friends old and new about things I have
never been able to talk to them about before.
But
of all the conversations I have had this year, the one that is
the most memorable…most meaningful…most
mind-boggling...was a conversation I had with a colleague,
another Methodist pastor—a pastor who serves a church here
in the Metro area but who was born and raised in Liberia, the
much-troubled country on the western coast of Africa. The
group at the table was talking about the film and the
starkness of the violence in the film when he said, “For
many Americans, I guess this is the first time they realized
how brutal the crucifixion was. But for me, the film was just
a reminder of the way things are for so many back home.” The
table fell silent. Nothing
more was said. The subject was changed, but that phrase, “it
was just a reminder,” has stuck with me. It has forced me to
confront the song’s next question.
“Were
you there when they nailed him to the tree?”
“It was just a reminder…”
For this man, what he saw on that screen was nothing new. It
was a reminder for him, and to the rest of us sitting at that
table, that violence and evil are still potent forces in our
world today. It was a reminder that the brutality people are
capable of wielding upon one another continues. His statement
was a reminder that for many, what Jesus went through on the
cross was and is an act of solidarity, as much as an act of
salvation, for those who carry on their bodies the scars and
stripes of our broken communities and world. His statement
that day has forced me to wrestle with our song’s query:
“Were
you there when they nailed him to the tree?”
What if I was there? Would I
really know what was happening? Would I understand the act of
solidarity God was taking on that day? Where would I have been
if I were there that day, or present here this day when the
same kind of suffering is being experienced or inflicted?
Where would I be standing when they nailed him to that tree?
In the foreground, beneath that great Roman stake with all of
Jesus’ opponents who were gathered there to ridicule him? Or
maybe I’d be with the male disciples, altogether absent at
this spectacle, having abandoned Jesus at the first whiff of
confrontation? Maybe I’d be a part of the vigil with the
women, incredulous and numb with grief. Maybe I’d be just a
face in the crowd, a gawker who had come to see what all the
commotion was about but who had no real investment in the
whole drama being played. What if I was there? What would it
mean to me?
It is important to remember that
“nailing one to a tree” in antiquity was a far more common
practice than we can even begin to fathom. This
form of state terror was widespread across the Roman Empire.
It originated several centuries before the Common Era and
continued into the fourth century of the Common Era. While its
origins are obscure, it is clear that this form of capital
punishment lasted for around 800 years, and tens of thousands
(if not hundreds of thousands) of individuals were subjected
to this cruel and humiliating death. Mass executions in which
hundreds and thousands died—such as the well-known
crucifixion of 6,000 followers of Spartacus as part of a
victory celebration along the Appian Way in 71 BCE—are well
documented in the literature of the day. The roadsides and
countrysides of the Roman Empire were riddled with crosses and
its graves were filled with those who had been crucified.
So what makes one cross upon a
hill different from thousands of other crosses used by the
Romans to punish outlaws, traitors and dangerous slaves? To
the public eye, there is nothing different about Jesus’
death. To the public eye, he was just like all the rest, a
dangerous enemy of both the church and the state—a poor,
peasant preacher who could easily be disposed of.
So what makes this cross any
different? It is different because we know the whole story.
Because we know his story, Jesus doesn’t become just one of
the faceless and nameless thousands who hung on crosses. His
cross brings salvation to the world because of what we know
about the life of the one who hung upon it. We know he had
friends, family, feelings and a future he hoped to help the
world realize. We know that he was somebody’s son. He was
somebody’s brother. He was teacher to many and the one who
showed us the very nature of who God is. It is the story that
always makes the difference.
Jesus’ death among the nameless
should remind us, as it reminded my Liberian friend, that all
those who have been made to bear the cross of violence and
suffering also have stories, families, friends and futures.
Jesus’ death reminds us that God stood among the nameless
and faceless people who suffer because of the brokenness of
the world.
The cross brings salvation to the
world in many ways. But one unmistakable way it can save the
world is when we let its violence shake us to our very core.
If we look into the eyes of Jesus as he dies on that cross,
there is a transforming power that should make us say “no
more.” No more crosses. No more crucifixion. No longer will
I be blind to the suffering of the world. No longer will I
participate in a society that forces people to suffer so
invisibly. No longer will I allow myself to be trapped in my
brokenness. If you were there when they nailed him to the
tree, if you really witnessed it…
Jesus’ whole life was devoted
to the nameless and faceless people of the world who were
desperate for healing and wholeness. Notice that in most of
the stories, these people have no names but were known only by
their affliction or sin—the leper, the paralytic, the
hemorrhaging woman, the prostitute, the man born blind, the
woman caught in adultery. But he saw in them something
different. To him they weren’t nameless. They were children
of God. And because they belonged to God, they had worth. They
had a name, they had a family, they had feelings and futures.
They had a story. Jesus devoted his life to the nameless
victims of suffering and sin, and on this day he died with
them…he died for them…he died as one of them.
When Jesus died, there were at
least two other Palestinian mothers besides Mary who mourned
the death of their children, and their pain and sorrow were
equally valid. And God suffered for all of them equally. There
were three sons of God dying that fateful afternoon on
Calvary. Jesus dying alongside them made their deaths more
visible and some of their stories known. If we tend to
remember only one cross, we will obscure the way we relate to
suffering and death, both ours and others.
Today, as we look to the cross
that Christ died upon, may it shake us so deeply that every
cross that is in our midst becomes more visible. Salvation for
our world can come from understanding Jesus’ solidarity for
those who suffer, as much as it can come from an understanding
of his sacrifice for those who are in sin. The cross should
call us to repentance, but it should also call us into
solidarity.
On the cross, Jesus cries out, “My
God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” In that moment, Jesus’ cry becomes the cry for those who suffer. Jesus
embodies the cry of our broken hearts and broken homes and
broken humanity. He reminds us that he has indeed heard our
cries and that God hears them, too.
You see, the body of Christ still
suffers. The body of Christ bears the burdens of the crosses
of this world. The body of Christ is still dying because of
our transgressions. Today, Jesus is being crucified again in
the bodies and lives of millions of people around the world
whose voices have been silenced by violence and repression.
Too often we still live in a Good Friday world where the
crucified ones confront a world that still laughs at their
cries and is still deaf when they ask the ultimate question:
Has even God forsaken us now?
The crucifixion is all
around us. The cries of the crucified still surround us.
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31 million people in this
country are crying out on the cross of hunger.
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30 million people on the
continent of Africa are crying out on the cross of AIDS.
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17 million people in this
country are crying out on the cross of depression.
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15 million people in this
country are crying out on the cross of alcoholism.
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5 million women are crying
out on the cross called domestic violence.
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850,000 children in this
country are crucified on the cross of child abuse.
This type of suffering—from
sickness and sin, from poverty of wealth and spirit—is not
some distant, far-away problem. And while we are called to
respond to a suffering world, we must not pretend that there
isn’t real suffering right here in our community. There are
plenty of crosses and people whose suffering may be tucked
away behind closed doors right here. Jesus is crying out for
them. He is crying out for you. He is crying out for me. Our
suffering does not need to be invisible, the suffering of
others need not be ignored.
Our song asks one more
question of us today:
“Were
you there when the stone was rolled away?”
You know crucifixion is supposed
to be the end of the story. To the Roman Empire, it was to be
the ultimate sign of defeat for its enemies. This was it. That
was that. Life goes on as normal with more suffering, more
injustice, more crosses, more crucifixion and more death for
the foreseeable future. Simply get rid of the evidence…the
body that has endured suffering and tasted death. Tuck it away
in some nameless cemetery or some unmarked grave.
If we were to read ahead to the
next chapter of Mark, we would find the women who were there
at the cross going to the tomb—to the final resting place
where all of the hurt, pain, frustration, misery, sadness and
despair were entombed, locked away forevermore. The story was
over. They were simply going to bring flowers, offer last
rites, say goodbye.
But there is a stone that
prevents even this from happening. So they had a question. Who
would roll away the stone? Who would allow them to deal with
the suffering they had witnessed? Who would open the door so
all that had been locked away no longer remained hidden?
That is the question. Will
the stone be rolled away? Or is the story over?
Will the stone be rolled away
from all the places of darkness in your life? Or is this the
end of the story?
Will the stone be rolled away for
those who walk the corridors of our nursing homes or cancer
wards? Or is it the end of the story?
Will the stone be rolled away for
those whose only solace is the bottom of a bottle or a bottle
of pills? Or is it the end of the story?
Will the stone be rolled away so
that there can be Good News for the poor and food for the
hungry, homes for homeless and freedom for the prisoners? Or
is it the end of the story?
Will the stone be rolled away so
that those of us who have re-entombed Jesus in our hearts can
unleash the power of our personal relationship with God on a
world in need of hope, healing, light and love? Or is this the
end of the story?
Will the stone be rolled away? Or
is this the end of the story?
I don’t know. I guess we’ll
just have to show up and find out.
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