By Shannon Vowell

Sunrise that day:
Your own Creation displaying glory.
But no joy for You;
You stumbled, pain-wracked, through the story
To see it to its bitter end,
To see it through…
No hope, no friend
Could there attend You as You faced
What no one else could face:
The whole weight, reek, waste, and grief of the human race;
Sin itself put on You, the sinless One…
Father, Spirit, separated from suffering Son…
How did You persevere?
What kept You there – displayed, a broken thing,
As if You were NOT God? Not Lord? Not King?
What held You to that Cross through hours that lasted years –
Straining to contain the centuries’ mass of murders, lies, greed, fears?
Why did You choose to die one Friday afternoon –
You, Who created time itself?
Was there no other way
To wipe the slate clean, ransom all the slaves,
Than living every moment of that Hellish day
And then living Hell itself?
All, all for us – that we might truly say,
“My Savior” –
Pray,
“Our Father” –
Stay
With You, Immanuel,
Through all eternity …
I cannot see how we were worth Your agony.
But Your love declared it so
And You are the Truth
You are “I Am”
Logos. Lord.
Perfect,
slaughtered,
Lamb.
O Jesus, grant us sight today to see Your bleeding body
as Your gift
Of life to us,
the beggars that You lift
From muck and mire to holiness and peace.
O Jesus, give us breath to praise and faith to claim:
Your love
will
never
cease.

Shannon Vowell, a frequent contributor to Good News, blogs at shannonvowell.com. She is the author of Beginning Again: Discovering and Delighting in God’s Plan for Your Future available on Amazon. Art from Natalya Rusetska of Lviv, Ukraine. Special thanks to iconart-gallery.com