“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”  So go the words to the title of one of the songs that is customarily sung each year on Good Friday.  It is a day when Catholic Christians come together to venerate the Cross, the Cross on which Jesus died in order to save us and free us from our sins.

I have had the opportunity to sing this song many times in church choirs.  Although the song always brought me to a spiritually emotional place, I really didn’t pay much attention to the depth of what these words were asking of me. “Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?” “Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?”  When I read about the crucifixion in the scriptures (MT 27:33-61; MK 15:22-47; LK 23:33-56; JN 19:17-42) I am taken back to that event some 2000 plus years ago when Jesus was betrayed (by Judas directly and the Jews [Pharisees et. al.] indirectly.  I read with sorrow and shame about what Jesus suffered for my sinfulness. How he was abandoned by the very same people that were praising His name when he would perform his many miracles.

Reading the passion narrative in John’s Gospel we are told that “standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary of Magdala and the beloved disciple, John (Jn 19:25).”  It always struck me as to what happened to the rest of the apostles, why weren’t they at the foot of the cross.  Could they have been more afraid for the safety of their lives than John and the women who were mentioned?  What happened from when we heard that brave battle cry from Thomas this past Sunday when he said “Let us also go to die with him?” (Jn 11:16)

As I was reflecting on this I had an epiphany.  Yes, the apostles, with the exception of John, were not there at the foot of the cross.  As I continued to reflect on this scene a question interrupted my thoughts, “who else was not there?”  After some time contemplating this question it occurred to me that I was not there.  No, I was not alive some 2000 years ago but that is where I got caught up in my own limitations of time and space.  The Crucifixion of Jesus was not an event that just took place in the past and is now over and done with.  It was an event that fills all of time, that which preceded and that which followed; “The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised.  And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many (Mt 27:52-53).”

The Crucifixion is before me, right now in my living presence, every day that I am alive.  Every day I make the choice to either be at the foot of the cross or to abandon Him, to go into hiding out of fear, sinfulness, apathy or lack of faith.  Every day Jesus looks down from His cross to see if I am there and when I am not, He weeps tears of sorrow. I abandon Jesus on the Cross when I choose to live in my own world, to build my own kingdom, when I am disobedient to the will of God the Father, when I am more fearful of my sinfulness than I am aware of the unconditional love and forgiveness of Jesus as he obediently went to his death as He bore my sins.

I recognize that I cannot do this (be at the foot of the Cross) on my own.  As I sing (and contemplate) once again, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord,” I recall the words of Jesus to his apostles in John 14:16, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth… I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”  When I am in my own world I will fail; “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible (Mt 19:26).  I will pray and will call upon the Holy Spirit to guide me, to give me the strength and courage I will need to be there at the foot of the Cross when Jesus looks down so that when Jesus weeps they are not tears of sorrow but of Joy.