Were you there when the crucified my Lord?
The song begs the question. Asks us if we were there…were we there when they crucified our Lord?
The year was 2004. It was the year of Mel Gibson’s famous and controversial film The Passion of Christ. Famous and controversial for its graphic depictions of the beatings and tortures inflicted up Jesus on this day over two thousand years ago.
It was horrific to watch.
It was almost impossible to watch.
For that couple of hours, we had to come face to face with the state sanctioned and church supported machinery of death that crushed Christ. The graphic nature of the film may have been the first time that many of us felt like we actually were there when they crucified our Lord!
It was during Lent of 2004, while the film was out that I found myself at a table sharing breakfast and conversation with a handful of other pastors. We talked about the movie and how it made us feel. It was then that one of my colleagues, a native born Liberian, said something that changed they way I saw that film and will see Good Friday forever.
When asked about the Gibson film, my Liberian born friend and colleague said, “The scenes in the movie just reminded me of back home!”
A hushed silence fell across the table.
For the rest of us – the film made us reflect on a past event but for my friend, the films graphic depictions of torture and death reminded of him of his Western African home that had been torn apart by decades of civil war. For him Good Friday is not a solemn remembrance of some past event – but it is stark reminder of the ways Jesus was still being crucified!
He was there – when the Body of Christ was beaten and bruised – tortured, crushed and killed. He was there….
Which begs the question –are we there, are we even aware, that Jesus is still being crucified daily in our midst…?
According to UNICEF each day– today – 22,000 children worldwide will die on the cross of poverty!
Over 800 hundred will die during the hour of this service!
In our country today – on this day –14.5 million children suffer on that same cross of poverty and 16 million children will go be bed not sure of where there next meal will come…. dying on the cross of hunger
Violence, abuse, addiction….
The question still lingers….are we there…are we even aware….that they are still the crucifying my Lord?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Crucifixion.
An instrument of public torture and death was widely used throughout the ancient Roman world of Jesus. Ancient histories suggest that tens of thousands were killed in the same tortuous way Jesus was killed.
The ancient historian Appian tells us that when the slave rebellion of Spartacus was crushed, the Roman general Crassus had six thousand of the slave prisoners crucified along a stretch of the Appian Way, the main road leading into Rome. Imagine it – the road leading into the largest and most powerful city in the known world lined with hundreds and thousands of crosses. It would be like the road leading to Washington DC being lined with electric chairs….
And Josephus tells us that when the Romans were besieging Jerusalem in 70 A.D. the Roman general Titus, at one point, crucified five hundred or more Jews a day. In fact, so many Jews were crucified outside of the walls that he wrote, “there was not enough room for the crosses and not enough crosses for the bodies.”
Here in lies the problem of Jesus’ crucifixion and the problems with Good Friday… if it is only understood as a single historical moment ….if it is only understood a single action of salvation….if it is only seen outside of the culture of violence and indifference that surrounded it….then it falls flat….loses its power….and is reduced just another religious guilt trip.
Only when Jesus’ cross make visible all the other crosses does it have the power to transform the world.
Jesus horrific death should make us rise up and say, “No more crosses….No more senseless killings….No more silent deaths….No more sitting quietly while the Body of Christ still suffers and dies every minute of every day….”
Let this day move us to stand up and say once and for all, “No longer will my actions, or my inactions, allow another nail to be driven into the bodies of my brothers and sister of this world.”
Let us not forget…. that the Son of God died between two other sons of God that day. Two other young men who had mothers and fathers and families and friends and stories…. at least two other mothers wept with Mary on that day…..
And God ‘s heart broke of all three of his sons that died on that hill that day.
Jesus’ death highlights the death of all who suffer and die from the violence and indifference of ourworld.
Jesus’ death reminds us that his life mattered.
It should remind us that all life matters.
Travon Martin’s life matters.
Eric Garner’s life matters.
Wenjain Lui and Rafeal Ramos – the two NY police officers murdered – their lives mattered.
Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha – the three Muslim North Carolina students killed by their neighbor – their lives mattered
Hani Abdel Messihah, Yousef Shoukry, Esam Badir Samir and the 18 other Copitc Christians who were brutally murdered in Libya – their lives mattered….
And Jeffrey Miller – the 32 year old young man I buried last Sunday who took his own life because he no longer believed that his life mattered –his life mattered!!
The irony was not lost on me that while I sat in McDonalds and wrote this sermon about the cruelty of crosses – the news footage was playing over and over the terror attack on a Kenyan University that left another 147 dead.
Another 147 weeping mothers
Another 147 unanswerable questions
Another 147 stories that will never get fully told
Jesus died among the nameless in order that his death would give light to theirs.
Were you there when the stone was rolled away?
They took Jesus down.
They pulled him from the tree.
They placed him in a tomb.
They rolled a stone in front of the door.
They sealed him away forever!
The crucifixion was the end of the story!
Jesus was dead!
His movement was dead!
All this love your neighbor– turn the other cheek stuff – dead!
The cross was supposed to be the end of the story.
The cross is always supposed to be the end of the story.
Terrorism and violence and hatred and murder…. all of them think they are the end of the story!
For so much of the world –Good Friday is their world! Poverty,hardship, addiction, abuse, loneliness , depression…this is the way it has always been…it is the way it always will be….
“My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” is the cry of a Good Friday world.
But Lord have mercy….three days later some church women decided to do the one thing they could do
These women came to the tomb early that morning believing that the story was over.
They simply came to pay their final respects.
They came to clean the mess.
They were powerless to change the events of the Friday afternoon.
They didn’t even know who would roll away the stone.
But they did the one thing they could do – they did the one thing every one of us can do – they showed up!
They showed up!
Showing up – it is the most powerful response we can make on Good Friday – good people showing up – and keep showing up – and saying to the world I know what it looks like – but believe it or not this is not the end of story.
So keep showing up!
Keep showing up at soup kitchens and food pantries.
Keep showing up in classrooms and waiting-rooms
Keep showing up by bedsides and roadsides and and inside the places where the decisions that impact the poor in our communities are made
Keep showing up with checks in hand and hands to help
Just keep showing in the places where the Body of Christ still suffers and dies
Just keep showing up!
Listen to the world around us – listen – you can hear them – they want to know….
“Will the stone be rolled away – or is this end of the story?”
The hungry and homeless are crying–will the stone be rolled away – or is this the end of the story?
The sick and shut in are crying – will the stone be rolled away – or is this the end of the story?
All of those kids in our neighborhoods are crying – will the stone be rolled away – or is this the end of the story?
The boys who are dying in our streets are crying – will the stone be rolled away – or is this the end of the story?
Our closeted friends who are subject to hateful attacks are crying – will the stone be rolled away – or is this the end of the story?
The guy at work who just got diagnosed with cancer and the woman next door whose husband has just left her –they are crying – will the stone be rolled away – or is this the end of thestory?
So will the stone be rolled away – or is this the end of the story?
So will the stone be rolled away – or is this the end of the story?
I guess we’ll just have to show up back here on Sunday and find out!