Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?

Serenity in Suffering is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber for just $5.00 a month. Your generosity will encourage this humble writer and poet while helping the vital work of Serenity in Suffering. May God Bless You!

Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Triumphantly entering Jerusalem ahead of the Jewish Passover, on what we term “Palm Sunday”, the people hail Jesus as “king”. Yet no one, not even Jesus’ disciples, despite Jesus plainly telling them, understood He entered as the sacrificial Passover Lamb.

When was the last time you walked through the timeline of events the last week of Christ’s earthly ministry as a participant? Set aside some time to immerse yourself in the story through reading the account in your Bible, the verses, videos, poetry and worship below, and deeply connecting with Christ in His last hours on earth.

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.”

Isaiah 53:3-9-KJV

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

Romans 5:6-10-KJV

The Passion
George Herbert
Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store; write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sin:
That when sin spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes,
All come to lodge there, sin may say,
No room for me, and fly away.
Sin being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sin take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.

Share

“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit”

1 Peter 3:18-KJV

I end with the haunting hymn, “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord” set to the Stations of the Cross, walking through each segment of Christ’s last hours. May you prayerfully surrender to this meditation of all Christ endured to purchase your pardon and ensure your place with Him forever.

Truly no greater Love has ever been witnessed.

Holy Week ends with Christ in the tomb; well we are left at the tomb, where we linger in cleansing grief. For from this point of grief, we rise with Christ on Resurrection Sunday. How great our joy in the victory over satan, sin and the grave! We cannot know joy apart from the experience of sorrow; we cannot truly appreciate the victory apart from the bitter taste of defeat.

We reflect upon Jesus enduring the cross, despising the shame, for the joy set before Him of redeeming His creation from the curse of sin and death. Walking the way of the cross in deep reflection and prayer prepares our hearts to celebrate the greatest miracle of transformation we can ever know.

Holding space with you this Holy Week for cleansing grief, as we behold the Love which would not let us go.

Leave a comment

Catch up at the blog, where I share a provocative post on how Jesus’ anointing days before His crucifixion haunted everywhere from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Judgement Hall of Pilate, Golgotha, and even to the present day. You don’t want to miss it this Holy Week!