For this year’s Lenten Guide, each member of the Council staff chose a verse from a favorite hymn to write about. We will post their reflections throughout Lent, for Ash Wednesday, each Sunday, and throughout Holy Week.
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” — The United Methodist Hymnal #288
Powerful. Moving. Visceral. Every year these words and this melody stop me in my tracks. Why? I wasn’t there when Jesus the Christ was nailed to a cross. Nor was I there standing as a physical witness to such suffering.
“Were You There” was forged in the crucible of a community whose faith stood in the face of slavery and oppression. These words and melody have a history that have been difficult to trace, but continue to connect with the inexplicable mystery of a God who is with us in the middle of suffering. These words and this melody call us to remember, to bring the past into the present; asking questions that invoke us to action.
Of course, we were not there when Jesus the Christ was nailed to a cross, suffered and died. We are being asked to remember the life and words of Jesus the Christ who called and still calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, to love the Lord our God with everything that we are, to hear the cry of the needy, to feed the hungry, to care for the widows and the orphans, to make disciples, to be witnesses, to be reflections of love in this world, and to be God’s kingdom people.
This Lenten season when we sing these words imagine if they said:
Were you there when my children had no bread?
Were you there when my life came to its end?
Oh, sometimes I wonder if you see me, see us, see them?
Will you come and be in our suffering?
