A HOLY WEEK: Day Six

It’s Friday of this Holy Week. This is the day Jesus dies. No more meals. No more garden moments. No more trials or administrative hoops. Today he dies.

As I drove home from church this afternoon to make final preparations for our community worship observing his death tonight, I didn’t notice anything special. No cars were pulled to the side of a road in shows of respect. No school children were grouped on street corners, heads down in prayerful remembrance of the sacrifice he made. No church bells rang to notify the community of the monumental occasion.

Seemed like any other day.

In November each year, people understandably make a big deal out of the Kennedy assassination anniversary.
In April, people rightly recall the horrible day Martin Luther King was killed.
In June, Bobby Kennedy’s death gets attention.

But today, Jesus’ death didn’t stir much interest.

Of course, the people for whom those assassinations make the most noise are those who were there when the events occurred. I was only six when JFK traveled to Dallas, yet I remember vividly the classroom speaker buzzing with an announcement of the tragedy, and my teacher’s tearful response. If you were old enough to be aware, then you no doubt remember their impacts.

Maybe that’s it, then. For Jesus’ death to pack a punch perhaps you have to have been there...or have to be there, now.

We’re using an old hymn as a recurring component in our community worship tonight. The hymn is “Were You There” (...when they crucified my Lord?). I may change the words as I sing:

Are you there?...


Pray with me:
If I am not there right now, lead me there (or pull, drag, cajole, or coerce me) as you need, for I need to be there as Jesus dies for me. If I’m not, then I am an impartial observer, a dispassionate historian. I want, I need to be more than that. In the name of Jesus, of whose death I am a witness, Amen.