Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
They were all people just like us, you know. It might just have well have been we who were there, not them. It would all have happened just the same.
Were you one of the ones that hadn’t really been paying attention?
Were you one of the curious bystanders who heard the shouting of the crowd and the distinctive heavy beat of Roman soldiers on that festival day, and turned to follow, to see what was going on? Craning your head over the people in front of you, perhaps you saw a dirty, bloodstained young man, back bent beneath a heavy wooden bar. “Another criminal,” you might have thought, “probably one of those bandits who plague our hills and make the journey up to Jericho or down to Hebron so dangerous.” That’s what you might have thought, until you saw the odd thing on his head. It looked sort of like a laurel wreath, but - no, it was made of those spiny palms, and shoved down hard over his forehead. You could see the blood stains down the side of his face. What did they do that for? So you push ahead and ask a man in front of you what’s happening.
“It’s that rabbi from Galilee,” comes the answer, “the one people thought might be the Messiah.” He goes on to explain, “But I knew all along he wasn’t for real. And then the council brought him to Pilate this morning, accusing him of blasphemy. They said he claimed to be the son of David, or maybe the son of God, and that he was going to destroy the temple. And he didn’t defend himself at all, he just stood there like a stupid sheep and let them rough him up. So of course that proves he wasn’t the Messiah, after all the Messiah would never have let that happen. The Messiah is going to be a real king, better even than David, who’ll get rid of the Romans and make us free again. So when Pilate asked if we wanted him or Barabbas freed, why of course I shouted for Barabbas. At least he’s a fighter. I’m tired of being stepped on. And it serves this Yeshua right, anyway, for getting everybody’s hopes up.”
Were you there, when they crucified the Lord? Were you the one who wouldn’t believe, because what you saw wasn’t what you wanted to see? Were you one of the ones who got angry with God when he didn’t obey you, and give you what you thought you ought to have?
Or were you in hiding with the other disciples, listening to the running feet and the distant shouts, trembling for fear lest the next sound should be footsteps on the stair and a loud, peremptory knock on the door? Were you wondering if following Jesus was going to cost more than you had ever expected, and asking yourself if it was really worth it, after all? Three years it had been, and you had left everything behind, family, work, everything set aside to follow someone who had just led you right into a possible death sentence. And he didn’t even lift a hand to stop them! You don’t know what to do any more. Everything you had hoped for was dust and ashes.
Were you hiding, when they crucified the Lord?
Or were you like poor Simon of Cyrene, [Mk 15:21] standing there at the edge of the road, caught up in something he had never expected when he came to Jerusalem for the Holy Days? He’d saved up for years to make the pilgrimage; it was a long way away, after all, and a dangerous voyage, too. He was here to worship at the temple, to make the sacrifices and hear the prayers and feel at long last truly a part of the Chosen People. And now this! Simon would give anything to be anywhere else, but he was stuck, he couldn’t move backward and he certainly didn’t want to move forward, right into the path of the soldiers. The face of the young man carrying the crossbar was so close he could hear the ragged breathing, see the blood and sweat and dirt running down his cheeks. He tripped over cobblestone and went down right in front of Simon, close enough to hear the crack of the knee smacking the pavement. The young man loses his balance, the heavy wooden bar pulls him over to one side and Simon could see the long, bleeding whip marks on his back. And a Roman hand grabbed him roughly, and shoved him into the road, saying, “Here, you! Carry the bar! Come on, step lively now!” and stunned with the speed with which all this happened there he was, just another Jerusalem pilgrim, walking up the cobbled road behind a condemned criminal with a 4x6 across his shoulders and stilll without a clue what was going on and wishing he was anywhere else. “How can I be so unlucky,” Simon thought. “Why didn’t I go the other way?”
But then he began to wonder. Because the young man ahead of him, freed of his burden, turned around and spoke - at first Simon thought he was speaking to him, but no, there were women following behind him, sobbing, and wailing louder than hired mourners at a rich politician’s funeral. And the young man said, “Don’t cry for me, women of Jerusalem, cry for yourselves and your children. For the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the women who never had children, who never bore babies, who never nursed them!” [Lk 23:27-29] And Simon began to wonder if, just maybe, something different was happening, something important. And he shifted under his burden to get a better grip and started back up the hill, thinking, “Maybe I came the right way after all.”
The women were hardly thinking at all. Some had been weeping for so long that it seemed they must soon run out of tears, they were hardly even aware of the crowds around them. They could only see the their beloved rabbi’s back laced with open welts, bruises, and blood. “This can’t really be happening, surely God won’t let this go on, how can they do this to him, how can he bear it, how can I bear it?”
For the soldiers, of course, this was just routine. If not Jesus, then Barabbas, if not Barabbas, then someone else. And what caterwauling from the crowd! The sergeant hated guard duty at this time of year, crowd control was never more dangerous, the Jews were always worked up about something and you never knew when they were going to start throwing things, rotten eggs or horse droppings. Well, at least it was almost their Holy Day when nobody hardly even stirred out of doors, they’d have a breather. And maybe he’d get lucky with the dice later on, maybe win one of the criminals’ garments and sell it for enough to pay for an evening at the tavern.
Everyone who was there, at the cross, had a question, except the ones who were sure they already had the answers.. .
What’s going on?
What am I doing here?
Were we fools for following him?
How could God let this happen?
Why did Jesus walk right into the trap?
What’s in it for me?
What am I going to do?
Who is that man, anyway?
Everyone has a question to ask of the cross.
Except Jesus.
All the watchers, all the players, all the followers were either ignorant, or selfish, or afraid, or too busy with their own lives. Some of the questions were idle, some ur-gent, some despairing. But none of them understood, everyone but Jesus had questions.
Because Jesus knew what was going on. Jesus knew what he was doing. Jesus knew why he was doing it. Jesus had known all along what it was going to cost, Jesus knew all along that he would pay with his life. Jesus didn’t have any questions.
Except one.
At three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
This he did not expect. This he had never known. Jesus had never before been apart from the father, never before been alone in the face of danger, of pain, of a frightening, unknown future. Always God had been there, an absolute, immovable, comforting security; strength and assurance and peace. But now, here, all of a sudden, having held fast through betrayal, public humiliation, unimaginable pain, all of a sudden Jesus’ calm broke. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus had never before known what we as human beings all know. He had known temptation, yes. He had known poverty, hunger, disappointment, weariness, pain, and grief. But he had never before been alone. There on the cross, at last, Jesus knew sin - the dreadful isolation, the utter echoing loneliness that is the central part of the human condition. We’re used to it, we humans. We numb ourselves with busy-ness, we distract ourselves with toys, we stuff ourselves with empty pleasures. As Christians, we have been given a glimpse of that wonderful closeness with God that for Jesus was an everyday reality. But as humans, we, too, often feel alone, confused, abandoned. Many of us know what it is to cry out, with Jesus, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But to none of us could it come with such a crushing, unexpected, unendurable harshness as it did to him who had never before experienced separation from the very source of life itself.
How many of you know the poem, “Footprints”? Do you remember the answer that God gave to the man who asked why there was only one set of footprints during the hardest times, why God had not been with him then? God said, “My child, the footsteps are mine, not yours. I was carrying you.”
That is the answer to Jesus’ question, and ours, when those times come. That is the only time Jesus was ever wrong. Because God had not abandoned him, nor has he ever abandoned us.
There are answers to all the questions people have of the cross.
What’s going on?
What am I doing here?
Are we fools to follow Jesus?
How could God let this happen?
Why did Jesus do it?
What’s in it for me?
Who is that man, anyway?
There is even an answer to Jesus’ question.
But one question still remains. It is the question of the cross itself. It is a question that each one of us must answer for ourselves, every day, in complete honesty before God. The question of the cross is, “Will you follow me?”
