Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

~"Were You There," United Methodist Hymnal #288

Being There

In his memoir With Head and Heart, theologian Howard Thurman wrote about traveling to India and meeting Mahatma Gandhi in 1935. While they were together, Ghandi asked Thurman to sing the spiritual "Were You There." Thurman invited his wife, Sue, to lead the song. After they sang together, Gandhi explained his request. He felt the song reached “to the root of the experience of the entire human race under the spread of the healing wings of suffering.”

Most hymnals hold this well-known spiritual, even though, like most spirituals, the origins of “Were You There” are not fully known; the song emerged from African-American worshippers in America in the 1800s. It became one of the first spirituals to appear in a popular American hymnal (1899), and remains beloved across churches today.

As we enter Holy Week, we join Christians around the world in remembering Jesus’ arrest, trial, death, and resurrection. Each service at Saint John's this week (Thursday, Friday, and Sunday — and a special Holy Saturday email Bread for Our Journey devotional) will draw us closer to the story. The song’s question, “Were you there?” calls each of us into the story of Christ’s passion. While none of us were physically present at the crucifixion, through scripture, worship, and song, we remember it in a sacred way.

Though Easter Sunday marks our particular celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, new life in Christ is something we live every day. As we move through these sacred days, may we let time itself fold in, remembering that Christ’s death and resurrection are not just events of the past, but realities shaping our lives today.