Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

For the last ten or twelve years I have had a scene play out in my mind every time I hear this beloved spiritual. When we sing, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"  I visualize a  small clapboard church, in the early 1800's somewhere in the southern United States of America as families with children gather for worship.

The pianist begins to set the mood for worship by playing a medley of hymns from that era with strains of the melody of the spiritual woven in, bringing the question to our attention.  "Were you there...?"  As we scan the worshiping congregation our focus falls on one family in particular, zeroing in on the face of the man, husband and father, pleasant and intentional in his attention to his family and his involvement in the activity of worship.

The background melody fades into silence as the scene changes, ending with a refrain from "Were You There...?"  As the final piano refrain sounds, we exit the church building and make our way to a cluster of slave cabins.  An old female slave sits on the front steps, mournfully humming the melody of the spiritual to herself as she slowly sways.  Behind her a scene begins to play out for us to see.

A young male slave has been captured in his attempt to escape.  He is brought back to the slave quarters and the slave owner, the man who was previously worshiping with his family, prepares the run-away slave for a whipping.  The slave, exhausted from his attempted escape, has his hands bound with a rope that is secured to the branch of the tree, stretching him so that his toes barely touch the ground, exposing his naked back to the whip.

The old woman, aware of what is happening behind her, out of her sight, begins to sing, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"  Whip lashes punctuate her singing.  As she sings, in her mind, she addresses the question to the slave owner. The slave owner is oblivious to her.  The whipping continues as the old woman continues to sing.  "Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?"

The young slave slums into unconsciousness and she sings, "Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?"    Finally, as a the slave owner walks away, satisfied that all his slaves will learn from this demonstration, we hear, "Were you there when He rose up from the grave?"    As the lyrics repeat the question other slaves move toward the unconscious man to release him from the tree and to tend his wounds.

"Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble... were you there when they crucified my Lord?"

In my mind an unspoken question lingers in the air...
even to this day!
If you were there--if you understand the meaning of my Lord's death--how can you continue to do what you are doing?  That's the question I hear this beloved spiritual asking, then and now.

Today the question confronts the bullying and derogatory language that permeates our national conversation. We seem to demonstrate a mutual disrespect for one another whether we are considering race or political issues.  If we call ourselves Christian and understand the power of the resurrection, the good news of Jesus Christ, how can we continue to demean one another?

I am grateful that I live on this side of slavery--but scenes from the Civil Rights era of our nation continue to haunt me: the dogs and fire hoses being used to beat back the men, women and children who were simply asking for their rights as citizens in the United States; the billy-clubs and name calling on Bloody Sunday.  . Deep in my heart I know there must have been church-going men among those who ordered and aimed the hoses and handled the dogs, doing it without questioning their own actions.  I'm sure there were deacons and elders active in their Christian congregations who fought back the marchers on Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, feeling justified in their actions.  Some of the women who administered the so-called literacy tests that denied black applicants the right to vote probably taught Sunday school classes at their churches without even considering what they were doing.

And that haunting question continues to weave its way through my thoughts. "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"