Monday Morning Music Ministry

4-11-22

By the reliable accounts, both historical and Biblical, there were few people gathered on the Jerusalem hill called Golgotha (“the Place of the Skull”) around Passover when three condemned men were put to death. Roman centurions, mostly; and scattered relatives of the criminals. Even friends generally were afraid to be present, as the condemned were outcasts sentenced to die by the most heinous manner the Romans devised – bodies nailed and hanging on wooden crosses – and guards likely were looking for associates of the criminals.

This day we now call Good Friday. Accounts differ about the name’s origin: an evolution of “God’s Friday,” or Good because it was, in fact, good that Jesus died for our sins.

As “fully man and fully God,” He could have halted the execution. He could have caused Pontius Pilate and the Jewish Elders to drop dead instead of their engineering His arrest and trial and torture. He could have summoned ten thousand angels to halt the crucifixion, and swept Him from the cross.

But instead Jesus submitted. It was, after all, the main reason for the Incarnation – why God became man and dwelt among us; why He fulfilled prophecies in uncountable ways; why He proved His divinity by wisdom, by miracles, by healings. Why He had to die.

In fact, for all intents and purposes, Jesus did not avoid, but figuratively climbed up that cross.

I have noted that experts consider crucifixion to be one of the most torture-laden forms of execution. Beyond the pain of spikes driven through the limbs, and hundreds of splinters slicing the body that hanged on the cross, the crucified victim actually died of suffocation, as the weight of their sagging bodies, and pericardial fluids, choked the heart and lungs.

Under Roman justice, the condemned usually were beaten or crucified, not both. Jesus was bound, whipped, tortured, spat upon, beaten about the face and kicked; and had a crown of thorns thrust on His head. He was flogged with the Roman whips that had sharpened bones or filed metal tips on the thongs, so with each of many scourges, the skin was shredded. Jesus was made to carry His heavy cross (the patibulum to which His wrists would be nailed) through Jerusalem’s streets.

When on the cross He suffered yet more. When He said He thirsted, a sponge with vinegar was thrust in His face. A mocking title was affixed over His head. He was goaded to save Himself, since He claimed to be the Son of God. I have written that the worst part of His suffering that Good Friday might have been the fact that His disciples, who had lived with Him for three years and seen the evidence of His divinity… deserted Him; hiding, not even around the foot of the cross.

Among the few there was His mother, Mary. “Behold your son,” He was able to say to her. Through tears, their eyes met.

If you and I could have been there, we would have seen how few people were present. Some artists, and recent movies like The Passion Of the Christ, actually have presented an accurate depiction of the ugly hill, the forsaken site, the three crosses (other condemned criminals on either side), the centurions, and scattered onlookers.

In a real sense, however, you and I were there. We, and all of humankind, were there during Holy Week, in fact. We would probably have welcomed Jesus on what we now call Palm Sunday; and we probably would have been part of the crowd several days later screaming for His crucifixion. Do you think you would have been any different than the average people in the city, driven to frenzy by lies, hate, and the leaders’ persuasion? The effects of “Cancel Culture” are not new.

Also, we probably would have denied, betrayed, and deserted Jesus just as the Disciples did. I received mail after I recently wrote that. “Not me!” some wrote… but even Peter, who had spent a thousand days at Jesus’s side, yet swore three times to officials that he didn’t know this “Jesus.”

No, you and I virtually were there, because when we sin, we offend God and justly deserve punishment. A perfect God cannot welcome us to His Heaven except that we are sinless… and that is what we become in His eyes when we accept Jesus’s substitution. A “Good” and loving plan of salvation for us… all the more exquisite when we realize the agony God designed by having His Son take upon Himself all the sins of the world. But in the meantime every sin is a nail through Jesus’s hand.

It is no stretch to picture ourselves as present during Holy Week; gathered around the foot of the cross. We were there. We can imagine, quite easily, that this miracle-man, the Son of God, looked down from the cross, and through the ages, at each one of us.

He meets our eyes. He knows us.

And we look up. We meet His eyes. Do we know Him? There are times in our lives we have avoided His gaze; we too have denied Him, even betrayed Him. He has knocked on the doors of our lives, and we have not always answered or let Him in.

But He offers forgiveness. All He has ever asked is that we believe He is God’s son and – as we see – is the sacrifice for our sins. And that He will be raised from death. His Blood, which we see in this imagining, is the payment for our guilt. This Calvary scene is, rather than awful, one of love – joy unspeakable and full of glory.

You have heard this: We ask Jesus how much He loves us; He says, “This much!” and spreads His arms wide; and then they nail those arms to the cross, and He dies.

An old Negro Spiritual recreates the scene, and the urgent message to our souls:

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?

Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

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Click: Were You There When They Crucified My Lord

1-20-20

Regrets, I’ve had a few. Yes, something in common with Frank Sinatra. But those of us without regrets simply have not lived long, or even well. It’s part of life.

We seldom regret things that have happened to us, but rather things we did or didn’t do; opportunities we could have seized; what ifs; personal woulda-coulda-shouldas; errors of omission, commission, even remission.

Theodore Roosevelt, in a philosophical moment, once wrote: It is not being in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts. What we do with regrets can determine what kind of life we lead – I refer to our emotional equilibrium. And, of course, our spiritual serenity.

I have chosen, for the video clip below, a performance of the old “plantation spiritual” first printed in a hymnal in 1899: “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” The haunting lament of the Black church asks a rhetorical question. Yes… you were there. We all were there, because our sins sent Jesus to the cross.

He went there willingly, yes; but it was to suffer punishment we deserve. Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. You? Our sin-consciousness should make us tremble… and be filled with profound regrets!

However, a message of the cross is that we should come away from our culpability in the Passion of Jesus trembling for joy, ultimately. That plantation song is an Easter tradition, but it is a shame if we do not meditate on it all year long. It’s not just for Easter. On the contrary.

After Jesus died, Judas was so filled with regrets that he hanged himself. After denying Jesus, Peter instead was transformed by the Resurrection, and led a reformed, joyful, powerful life.

We have those choices to make, about everything that causes regret in our lives. I confess that I am very jealous of one of God’s attributes – that He is able to take our sins, or anything else, and throw them as into a “sea of forgetfulness.” Can God Almighty not do something??? Yes, when He chooses, He can forget things, in the process of forgiving us!

Good trick, Heavenly Father. Beyond our abilities, of course: we are not God. So it remains for us, rather, to deal with our regrets. Not to be warped… not let them haunt us.

My friend Kent Kraning is a pastor at Friends Church in Yorba Linda CA, and he recently wrote a book about parenting – more, about father-son relationships; but even more, fairly overflowing with wisdom about family life overall – and he asked me to lend an editorial eye to it. It is called Dirt Bombs, from one of the book’s anecdotes of many stories that resonate. Stay alert on Amazon for it.

Anyway, Kent wrote a casual line in the book that had great impact when I read it. I would nominate it for plaques on family room walls, bumper strips, or Bible bookmarks. It is a better single sentence than my whole essay here, I think:

Swim toward tomorrow, or you will drown in yesterday.

Have you made mistakes? Learn from them. Do you have regrets? Don’t repeat those things you regret. Is there something you think God can’t forgive in your life? News bulletin: You’re wrong. He aches for the chance to forgive.

You might come face to face with Jesus, and have feelings that you are unworthy, and regrets that you might have failed Him. For a moment you may tremble, tremble, tremble. But then, as He will tell you if you will only listen, you can rejoice for the forgiveness and new life He offers. You will tremble, tremble, tremble in joy.

And – even if the current seems strongly against you at times – swim toward tomorrow!

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Click: Were You There?