Were You There?

June 10, 2016

Were You There?

Read Matthew 27:32-66.

I was there. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was there. I was one who stood on the ground and hurled insults at him. As if hanging in front of a crowd, naked, nailed to two wooded posts wasn't enough. We literally added insult to injury. "Come down from the cross," I yelled, "if you are the Son of God," and I especially emphasized the "if." I certainly didn't believe he was who he claimed to be; why in the world would a son of some god allow himself to be hung on a cross? "Why can't you save yourself?" Yes, I was there. I was one of the insulters. I didn't think this beaten, bloodied man had anything to offer to me.

I was wrong.

I was there. I wasn't the most experienced soldier, so they often made me the errand boy. Any disgusting task they wanted to have done, they sent me to do. I'd been to a few crucifixions before, but nothing like this. I'd never been to one where the sky got so dark. And then when the criminal on the cross yelled out some words we couldn't understand, it was sort of frightening. One of the elder soldiers called out, "Hey, you, go get some wine for him!" Yeah, that may not sound so disgusting to you, but they had me soak a sponge in the sour wine, the bad wine, and offer it to him. Sponges, you see, were the things we used to...well, to clean ourselves up after we had relieved ourselves. I don't blame the criminal for refusing it. It was an attempt at a nasty joke from the soldiers toward the criminal. I was there. I offered him a bitter solace.

And I was wrong to do so.

I was there. I thought I was coming to Jerusalem to help take care of him, but it wasn't long after the meal on Thursday night I realized there was nothing I could do for him. He was in the hands of our so-called legal system. Even so, as they took him from place to place, from trial to trial, I stayed near. I tried to get as close to him as I could until the very end; it was the least I could do for him. After all, he had cast demons out of me and invited me from my home in Magdala to follow him. The least I could do was to try to stay near. If I couldn't take care of him, I could at least stay by. I was there, to the very end.

And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?