In His Name Devotionals
WERE YOU THERE?
In His Name Devotionals
WERE YOU THERE?
“I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.” (Gal. 2:20 KJV)
Two millennia ago, on a hill just outside the city of Jerusalem, something incredible happened. Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of the holy God, died like a common criminal. This event, like none other, changed the course of human history. Nothing before and nothing since has had such a profound effect on the world’s inhabitants—past, present, or future.
Nineteenth-century America was introduced to a kind of suffering few had ever known—the scourge of undeserved punishment and the betrayal of all humanity. Slaves had no means of transportation, yet they traveled. Through time and space, like science fiction heroes, they were dramatically transported back to Calvary. Their hearts becoming inextricably bound to the Savior with whom they identified so completely.
This classic spiritual builds to a powerful crescendo by highlighting a different detail of the crucifixion in each stanza, culminating with a triumphant celebration of the resurrection. It evokes a poignantly personal perspective on the drama of the cross by asking the question, “Were you there…?”—compelling us to contemplate the cross from the viewpoint of an eyewitness.
The first stanza introduces the horrible spectacle of crucifixion: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” The refrain: “Sometimes it causes me to tremble” is fitting because it was both an incongruity and an immense injustice that Christ (see Heb. 7:26) would die in such an ignominious manner. It ought to cause us to tremble!
The second stanza asks, “Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?” The nails used in Roman crucifixions were large, tapered iron spikes, similar to railroad spikes, but slightly longer and much thinner. The person was laid on the cross with arms extended, while the nails were driven through the flesh into the wood. Usually a second nail was driven through both feet, between the ankle bones and the Achilles tendon. The extreme agony of such wounds was only intensified when the cross was stood up and dropped into a hole.
The fourth stanza asks, “Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?” Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus prepared the body of Jesus, laying Him in a new garden tomb. Though our Lord had repeatedly said He would rise from the dead, still no one seemed to expect Him to actually do so. But John reveals that “early on the first day of the week” (20:1) He broke the bonds of death, and emerged from the tomb. As the fourth stanza of the spiritual says, “Sometimes I feel like shouting glory, glory, glory!”
