Go To Dark Gethsemane

Were you there when the disciples fell asleep?
Were you there when Christ Jesus was betrayed?
Were you there when the disciples ran away?
Were you there in the violence and the fear?
Were you there when Peter turned his head in shame?
Were you there when Pilate sentenced Christ to die?
Were you there you when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble...
Were you there…

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While working at Antioch a few years ago, I partnered with my mom to catalogue the music at the church. As part of the organizational process, I made a spreadsheet that included each song’s title, composer, arranger, publisher, date of publication, subject matter, and whether or not I thought it was a good match for the choir. My friend Barb would call this one of my OCD moments.

At the time, I was working on site-reading with the choir. One of the songs that I marked as a long-range possibility for us—largely because it was so different than anything we’d ever done but also because it had a very compelling text and haunting melody—became one of our site reading victims. We looked at it together. Read it. Sang it. Struggled through it. Acknowledged both its difficulty and power. Then put it away…but I didn’t forget it…and neither did they.

One of the first things I did when beginning work again at Antioch was hand out “Go To Dark Gethsemane.” Almost five years later, the choir having worked with a strong choral director in the time in between, I figured that my long-range choir dream might actually come true. Easily the most difficult song in our repertoire, “Go To Dark Gethsemane” has occupied a few minutes of choir practice each week for the past two months. Phrase by phrase, we have worked our way through the Lenten Season to prepare ourselves for this very night…and the three days that follow.

After searching for a YouTube recording to post with this note, I realized that “Go To Dark Gethsemane” is a text that has been set to many different melodies. I couldn’t find the one that we’ve been rehearsing, so I’m simply going to post the words and ask that you join me in Gethsemane.

Be prepared, though…the garden is dark…and the next few days are, too…

Go to dark Gethsemane
Ye that feel the tempter's power
Your Redeemer's conflict see

Watch with him one bitter hour

Turn not from His grief away
Learn with Jesus Christ to pray

Follow to the judgment hall
View the Lord of Life arraigned

Oh the wormwood and the gall
Oh the pangs of soul sustained

Shun not suffering, shame, nor loss
Learn with Him to bear the cross

Early hasten to the tomb
Where they laid His breathless clay
All is solitude and gloom
Who has taken him away

Christ is risen
He meets our eyes

Savior teach us,
Savior teach us,
Teach us so to rise.