Were You There When They Crucified My LORD?

I am thinking of two passage this morning.  The first one is the first reading for Good Friday Isaiah 52:13-53:12.  

The other is from the second reading on Passion Sunday Philippians 2:5-11 — That I wrote on in one of my last blogs.

First let me comment, again, on the second of the two, Philippians 2: 6-8

⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,

   did not regard equality with God

   as something to be exploited, 

⁷ but emptied himself,

   taking the form of a slave,

   being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form, 

⁸   he humbled himself

   and became obedient to the point of death—

   even death on a cross.

Very, very simply put:

God Almighty, the Creator of all that is — ⁸ humbled himself.

The Divine Power and Glory became “a slave.”

Now read, from the Good Friday text, how this God/man was predicted to be observed and treated  — and indeed was observed  and treated — by those who lived around him:

Who has believed what we have heard?

   And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 

² For he grew up before him like a young plant,

   and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

   nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 

³ He was despised and rejected by others;

   a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;

and as one from whom others hide their faces

   he was despised, and we held him of no account. 

⁴ Surely he has borne our infirmities

   and carried our diseases;

yet we accounted him stricken,

   struck down by God, and afflicted. 

⁵ But he was wounded for our transgressions,

   crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the punishment that made us whole,

   and by his bruises we are healed. 

⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;

   we have all turned to our own way,

and the Lord has laid on him

   the iniquity of us all. 

⁷ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

   yet he did not open his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

   and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

   so he did not open his mouth. 

⁸ By a perversion of justice he was taken away.

   Who could have imagined his future?

For he was cut off from the land of the living,

   stricken for the transgression of my people. 

⁹ They made his grave with the wicked

   and his tomb with the rich,

although he had done no violence,

   and there was no deceit in his mouth. (Isaiah 53)

Now, reread these verses again:

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

   nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 

³ He was despised and rejected by others;

   a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;

and as one from whom others hide their faces

   he was despised, and we held him of no account.

As you moved through this day it might be good to think about this ironic truth.

A truth that Jesus experienced as he lived on this earth trying, with all that was in him, to bring Gods love.

And yet,   he was despised, and we held him of no account.

And I once again have to wonder: were we also there when they crucified my LORD?

Is this world today still guilty of the Good Friday event?