“Were You There” - ELW 353
1 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?
2 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?
3 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?
4 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?
Devotion
What’s this talk of trembling all about? Is it another version of fear-based religion? What is it to tremble? The French Jewish philosopher Jacques Derrida wrote, “I tremble at what exceeds my seeing and my knowing, although it concerns the innermost parts of me, right down to my soul, down to the bone, as we say.”
We truly live this old Lenten hymn when we tremble at the specter of human sin beyond our fathoming: the nails, the tree, the tomb. We think of the Holocaust and of all the instances of evil that fill our headlines. Do we not also tremble over our sin? What was I thinking when I ...? How could I do, fail to do ...? We keep Lent as we heed a call to repentance.
But there is something else that “exceeds my seeing and my knowing:” God, the maker of a million universes. We keep Lent, too, when the events of that holiest of weeks declares to us that the God who is immeasurably beyond us is unrelentingly for us.
Prayer
Gracious God, break into our worlds to help us face the depth of evil around us and in us. Let us not fail to hear Your promise to love us unconditionally. Amen.