Hung on a Tree Lyrics

I've got dreams

I've got dreams, too...

I've got dreams

I've got dreams, too...

I've got dreams...

The suns shining, but I can't feel it past my skin

There's a million places I would've rather been

Families young and old are gathering

Now the victim staggers in

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 much be a botched trial even though he's docile

Their 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've set him free"

Then 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 they come draggin' one of the boys down

Out of the jail, took him right down the sidewalk

Everyone was kicking and hitting him and everything else

And there was a Model-T Ford coupe

That a woman standing up there

And just all goin' crazy

She jumped down, she had high-heels, I seen this happen

And her high heels just scraped a hole

Just like a cut with a knife down his back

They pulled him out and they drug him up there by a car

And took him over there and put him, hung him up on the maple tree...

That's the story of a 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:

Mary Turner, Ernest Green, Charlie Lang, Thomas Shipp

Laura and LD Nelson, George Meadows, Abram Smith

Rubin Stacy, 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 is a deep suffering in our history

And I've learned about it I've learned how Jesus can relate to the victims

Who have carried such terrible pain

But 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 begin to see the cross as done for us

We have to see it as done by us"

Well we know that the cross was done for us

Jesus was crucified for our sin

How was it done by us? I mean, that was 2000 yrs ago

It's because we recognize sin isn't just an actions or thoughts in us now

But it's a systemic problem, since Adam, that affects us all

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 accuse with their agenda

I'm the Roman soldier, you know, just, "doing his job"

I'm Pontius Pilate who was concerned about pleasing the crowd

I'm the disciple who claims allegiance to Christ but fled

I'm 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 week

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've 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

I gotta 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 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

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 and be healed…