"Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble."

"Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble."
Hymn: “Were You There?” – African American Spiritual
Tune: WERE YOU THERE

Trembling. Shuttering. Shaking uncontrollably. How long since the thought of the crucified Lord gave you a rigor? Brought an overwhelming sense of awe and appreciation?

Do the pictures that traverse your mind during this week still “get to you” when you visualize the cruelties layered upon the Righteous One? The sweat-drops of blood in the garden, the abandonment of his friends, the unfair treatment by the justice system of his day, the floggings, the pressing down of the thorns into his brow, his being forced to carry his own instrument of destruction, his being raised up to die, the piercing of his side, the taste of vinegar on his lips… on and on the humiliations mount up.

It is not a feel-good week for those of us who take the events seriously… who walk the path of sorrow in the shadow of the Savior… who step aside and allow these images to massage our spirits and reshape our attitudes – and realign our relationship with our Redeemer.

After the culmination of all the indignities and the eventual silence of death, he was laid in the tomb. It was then that the trembling – the quaking – is taken up by the earth itself as the totally-dead Christ is released from the ground to be the totally-alive Risen Lord. And with that realization, we tremble once again, standing amazed at the power of God, the Master of the Universe – the Life-giver.

All in all, during this week there’s a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on!

Marion Williams

Willie Nelson