I'm not dreaming.
The sun's shining, but I can't feel it past my skin.
There's a million places I would have rather been.
Families young and old are gathering.
Now the victim staggers in.
Man, things are getting tense The crowd and religious leaders hate who he represents They accuse him loudly, but it's not making sense The authorities don't resist and they ignore his defense
This must be a botched trial.
Even though he's docile, the words are harsh while it's getting hostile.
Then they beat him.
The violence and brutality have to be the sheer depravity of humanity.
My heart breaks as I see his agony while the crowd sits passively or even cheers happily.
Words fail to describe this tragedy.
They hung him high and let him die so all would have to see.
My mind screams, I would have set him free.
And I look into the crowd and see people just like me.
This sin is so ugly now I see.
Humiliated, violated, and hung him on a tree.
And a come dragon.
one of the boys down out of the jail.
Took him right down the sidewalk.
Everybody was kicking, hitting him and everything else.
And there was a Model T Ford coupe that a woman was standing up there and just, they'd all gone crazy.
She jumped down.
She had high heels.
I seen this happen.
And her high heels just scraped
Creeped a hole just like that with a knife down his back.
They pulled him out and they drug him up there by a car.
And we took him off of there and hung him up on the...
That's the story of the lynching, a brutal execution similar to crucifixion.
And this was while my grandparents were still living.
Rarely do we mention or reflect on all the victims.
Harry Turner, Ernest Green, Charlie Lang, Thomas Shipp.
Lauren L.D.
Nelson, George Meadows, Abrams Smith, Ruben Stacey, Jesse Washington, and Emmett Till, and thousands more just like them, all were killed and had their lives erased in violent hate in the United States.
I can't try to shake this without seeing the Messiah's face.
He walked in the shoes of the falsely accused.
Mocked and abused and died.
And we all were there, too.
There's a deep suffering in our history.
And as I've learned about it, I've learned how Jesus can relate to the victims.
who have carried such terrible pain.
I mean, can I be real?
I honestly struggle.
How do I relate to these stories and the fact that
The lynchings were so similar to the crucifixion.
Well, it's been said that before we can see the cross as done for us, we have to see it as done by us.
But we know the cross was done for us.
Jesus was crucified for our sin.
How is it done by us?
I mean, that was years ago.
but because we recognize sin isn't just actions or thoughts in us now, but it's a systemic problem.
since Adam that affects us all.
I mean, we don't just do sinful things.
We have a sinful nature.
sinful tendencies that we share.
So if I'm asked where was I in the crucifixion?
I relate because I'm the religious leaders who are accused with their agenda.
I'm the Roman soldier, you know, just...
doing his job.
I'm Pontius Pilate, who's concerned about pleasing the crowd.
I'm the disciple who claims allegiance to Christ, but bled.
I'm the guilty Barabbas who was released when he should have died while Jesus took his place.
I'm in the crowd that praised him one Sunday, but didn't mind him out of their lives that next.
Only Jesus died to take away our sin.
Only Jesus died with the power to rise again.
but that death causes us to look within and truly ask ourselves where we would have been.
So when someone's publicly murdered and stops breathing, I am broken.
And I start grieving.
I don't know all the reasons, but I drop my pretense.
It's humans like me.
who commit these sins.
My response sets a precedent.
I must confess all my sins, including prejudice, and not just the past,
My current sins are relevant.
My brothers and sisters suffer from my negligence.
If I see the other as a scary thug, I'm barely forgiven, so I barely love.
Seeing specks but I miss logs and despite it all Christ died for me in the lynch mob
This love shatters my defenses I cannot justify myself I seek repentance
Not just knowing it, but am I showing it?
I think I got the upper hand, but I've got a stone in it.
He knew I wouldn't set him free.
Yet he died for the crowd.
People just like me.
I was there too, now I see.
It was my sin that hung him on a tree.
You see, I've got to respond to the crucifixion of Jesus with humility
and introspection.
But then that same heart has got to be in me when I'm confronted with
with a brutal killing or I read about a lynching or I even just see the suffering that these events cause in others.
You see, I'm preaching to myself first before I preach to anybody else.
Because that's where we'll have a heart.
to actually, one, know what the crucifixion means, but two, be able to bring our sin into the light and deal with it.
And three, lastly, that's the only space and the only heart from which we can begin to learn to love each other.
