Were You There?

My Reflection

The hymn takes me back to an Easter exchange visit when I was still a preteen. Several busloads from Ephesus travelled to Philadelphia Seventh-day Adventist Church in New Amsterdam, Berbice. The visiting congregation helped lead the programmes from Good Friday through Easter. There was excitement in the journey, in staying among the host families and in the responsibility of preparing something worthy of the occasion.

One Sabbath-afternoon concert included a musical dramatisation of the Passion. Elder Small—“Smallie” to us, although he was anything but small—sang “Were You There?” in a rich baritone. There was humour in the personality and the performance, and there was also a moving seriousness. His extraordinary treatment of the repeated question, and the tremolo in his voice, made the rendition unforgettable. No one who heard him could easily forget it.

To this day, the memory does more than summon an entertaining moment from childhood. It prompts me to contemplate the Passion itself. The hymn asks a question that cannot be answered as an eyewitness would answer it, yet it draws us imaginatively to the scene. We are invited to attend, to consider the suffering of Christ and to examine what the Cross means to us.

Smallie taught me something about sacred music without setting out to teach it: a performance can be human, even humorous, and still carry profound spiritual weight. When I hear the hymn now, I hear his voice—and beyond it, the searching question that has never quite left me.

What I Carry

A hymn can turn a remembered voice into a lifelong invitation to contemplate the Cross.