Were You There?

There is an old song that goes “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?  Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble!”

If you had been there that dreadful day, watching our Lord and Master as He hung there, stripped and bleeding upon that cruel cross — what would you have done?

Would you have run away and hidden as so many of His disciples had done?  They ran for fear of their lives.  They had followed Him, and for all they knew, they would die with Him.  This one who had given such words of wisdom and hope!  How could this be happening?

Would you have disassociated yourself from Him as sharply as Peter had done earlier that day?  He vehemently denied the charge that He knew Christ, and then trembled in horror and disgrace as he heard the cock crow, for His Lord had foretold it.

Would you have gathered around to witness this dreadful scene?  There were indeed those who were His followers in the crowd.  These were not scared off by this tragic scene.  They loved Him, and wanted to be with Him in His hour of tragedy.

Would you have tried to stop it somehow?  When the crowd yelled “Give us Barabbus!”, would you have cried “No!  Give us Jesus!”?  And then when the crowd cried “Crucify Him!”, would you have shouted “No! Don t you touch Him!  He has done nothing wrong!”?

Would you have tried to steal our Master away, down off the cross?  Would you have tried to save Him?

Now there’s a paradox for you!

Isaiah had prophesied of this day.  He described how our Lord was badly beaten, that His torturers had violently torn the beard off of His face.  He tells us that He was so badly beaten that He hardly looked like a human being hanging there upon that cross!  Isaiah’s description is more vivid and more wrenching than any of the eyewitness accounts to be found in the Gospels.  It was as though he was actually there, yet he wrote over 700 years before the fact.

If you had been there and ‘saved’ our Lord, you would have made a false prophet of Isaiah.  The words of Divine inspiration would have fallen to the floor null and void.

If you had stolen Him away and nursed Him back to health, you would have also made a false prophet of David, the Psalmist of Israel, who wrote under Divine Inspiration:

“They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.  I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.  My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.  For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.  I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.  They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.”  Psalm 22:13-18

And what about our Lord’s Own Words?

Centuries before, when the Israelites had been in the wilderness, and their insufferable complaining had reached to heaven, the Lord sent fiery serpents among them to shut them up.  As they began dropping dead from these serpent bites, they crowded Moses and begged him to intercede for them to God.  Moses implored the Lord on their behalf, and the God of Israel instructed Moses to make a serpent of brass and fasten it to a pole, and hold it up for all the Israelites to see.  He told Moses that anyone who would simply look at that brazen serpent upon that pole would be healed of their suffering, and would not die.

Those fiery serpents represent sin, which has smitten each of us.  The penalty for that sin is death.  That brazen serpent, made of brass, the symbol of judgement, represented our Lord upon the cross.  This perfect Bible Type tells us of the Saviour’s Love, who would die on the cross; and that His death was the only antidote for our sin, and the only means of redemption.

Referring to this event, Jesus Himself said “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”  John 3:14-17

He had also said “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”  John 12:32

If you had rescued Jesus from that cross of affliction, you would have made Jesus Himself a LIAR!  You would have also sealed your own doom and the doom of all creation, for only in the cross of Christ and His subsequent resurrection do we have life!

No, my friends; though you might tremble in horror at the thought of our Lord and Master hanging there dying upon that cruel cross, if you had been there, you would not have been able to do a thing.  If you had tried any such folly, you would have been stopped by the Hand of the Almighty Himself.

Nothing in Heaven or on earth could have stopped that dreadful scene from happening.  It was the pivotal point of all of time and eternity.  Everything converged at the cross!

No, had you been there, you would have quietly, in wonder and in awe, done just as the Bible records...

“And sitting down, they watched Him there.”  Matthew 27:36

 

Written by the Rev. Dr. Kenneth C. Kemble