When I was younger I couldn’t understand the song Were you there. Was it a rhetorical question? Of course I wasn’t there.
I took it as a way of inviting the worshipper into the scenes of the cross. Each verse a word-mural to ponder. Envisioning torment, ugliness, repulsiveness, and love. Imagining we were there. Which, when paired with the marvelous (dare I say Spirit-inspired) music, makes the imagery take wings in our hearts and certainly stirs up that imagination within us.
Today I realized it’s not just imagination. In truth, I was there when they crucified my Lord.
This morning I was in Psalm 36 and the portrait of the wicked man struck me, for it described a certain man in the mirror. For a while I had felt distant from the Lord, and through this passage I recognized that much of the block came from some major sin I hadn’t adequately dealt with. So I re-membered my sin, instead of dis-membering it (hiding from it, minimizing it, overlooking it). Played it over in the fullness of its rebellion, blindness, and evil impact. Seeing its horror, ugliness, repulsiveness. And sharing it with Jesus. Confessing its wrongness before Him. And then giving it to Him.
Then I read Psalm 51, and began to receive His unfathomable embrace.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners will be converted to You.
And then I read Psalm 32; how true it is!
I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”; And You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah.
Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.
And then hope for real growth, real life:
I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
So I began to re-establish fellowship with the Lord. But it still troubled me. As I pondered this, my heart nudged me towards Were You There? So I took a walk and listened three times.
The first time, I pondered its ugliness and shame; trying not to look away in spite of its intensity. But to fixate on the crucifixion, the cross, the grave. To re-live it, to re-member its reality and its impact.
The second time, I realized I was there. I crucified my Lord. I superimposed the re-membering of my sin with the re-membering of Jesus’ crucifixion. I saw those made in God’s image being trampled by me, and then I saw the One who perfectly imaged God being trampled. I saw me nailing Him to the cross; to be scorned, held powerless, for all to see. I saw Him laid in that tomb. I saw the seeming finality of death. I even sensed a tinge of solemn remorse at such wicked actions, but no use; now He was dead. I was there.
The third time, I wept. Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. I realized the question “were you there…?” is something of a confession. A confession that I often live as if I wasn’t there. A confession that I often don’t look upon the cross. A confession that I don’t often enough experience its power. But when I do look, and dwell, and receive, I tremble. For His tree of death has become my tree of life.
And in the final verse, the joy of my salvation
Were you there when He rose up from the dead? Were you there when He rose up from the dead? Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when He rose up from the dead?