The summit gained.
The prisoner's aide heaves aside the cross and disappears
amid the chaos of the gathering crowd.
"Strip the prisoner and nail him."
Clouds gather as we stretch the bloody limbs and drive the spikes
Maddeningly, he is silent still
What is he? He must be mad!
A soldier shrugs and points to the two protesting thieves.
Their turn.
Here, light a torch
now hoist them up
His accusers arrive in the deepening gloom.
"If you are the Son of God, come down from that cross"
Amid the jeers, His voice comes clear
"Woman, behold thy son."
Then, to the man who stands beside her.
"Behold thy Mother".
Even now his thought is on others.
"Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."
A sneering laugh, "Come down, and then we will believe"
"Eli, Eli, Lama Sabacthani?"
his pain is excruciating, yet he responds with the Scriptures.
The jeers take on a note of fear,
then desperation in the growing dark.
fear that he will come down?
no
fear that he will not.
"Come down! Come Down! Then we will believe!"
An earthly king can be persuaded or ignored,
an earthly kingdom is easy and comfortable
but a kingdom that requires suffering and death to gain?
In the inky blackness, no moon or stars we see.
Only our torches light the scene there on Calvary
"I thirst"
but not for the wine and gall we bring Him.
"It is finished"
a cry
and He is gone.
earthquake,
rocks split
and the massy temple curtain tears
from top to bottom
truly, this man was the Son of God.