LAID TO REST
“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third… LAID TO REST
“Were You There?”
DEVOTION – GOOD FRIDAY
Lent and Holy Week have some very powerful and moving hymns that cause us to pause and contemplate our Savior’s passion. A few hymns that come to mind are, “Go to Dark Gethsemane,” “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted,” “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” and one that captured my imagination as a child, “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.”
A hymn for Good Friday that appears in some newer Lutheran hymnals is “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” (Christian Worship #119 / Lutheran Service Book #456) A quick search online reveals that this hymn was sung by slaves on plantations in the pre-Civil War era.
The hymn asks us if we “were there” when Jesus was crucified, when He was nailed to the tree, when they laid Him in the tomb, and when God raised Him from the tomb. Each verse echoes with the refrain, “Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.”“Were You There?”
“LET US DRAW NEAR…”
The words “Let us draw near” are probably familiar to us from hearing them many times at the beginning of the liturgy in the Sunday worship service. The pastor invites us to draw near to… “LET US DRAW NEAR…”