The Cross

For me, the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus is the cataclysmic event in all human history – the moment when human redemption was enacted by the only one who could take the weight of evil and preserve the primacy of love: the incarnate Son of God.

Many other people have bravely sacrificed their lives in the cause of right, but only Jesus could gather in the totality of human sin and anguish, and let death do its worst, and being Life, be unable to be bound by death… It was a real suffering, a real death, followed by a real rising from the dead. For us, it is real redemption and hope of eternal life.

 
His

Physical suffering

Was extreme,

But the mental

And spiritual

Pain, still more obscene.

 

He

Took into Himself

All our wretched sin;

Every evil deed

And sad omission,

Came stabbing in.

 

He

Embraced every

Abandoned soul;

Every unloved life

And broken heart

Took its heavy toll.

 

He,

Atlas-like, bore

The crushing weight,

Of a fractured,

Fallen, failed,

Global reprobate.

 

He

Could have avoided

Such an horrendous end,

But chose instead

To surrender Himself:

No braver, truer, friend.

 

Quite

Beyond our

Ability to ken,

Accumulated

Desolation,

His loathsome portion.

 

All

That has driven

Folk to suicide,

Keenly felt,

By a tender heart,

As innocence died.

 

Perched

Painfully on

That cross, He yet

Accepted scorn,

Abandonment,

Every bruising threat.

 

No

Single sin, past,

Present, or to come,

Was missed out

By those cruel nails,

Hammered with venom.

 

From

The smallest lie

To the cruellest war,

Man’s malice

Lacerated it’s

Scapegoat blood red raw.

 

And

Not just the passing

Agony of that moment,

But an unending

Passion, and still

Repeating sacrament.

 

No

One to take His part,

To voice a word of love;

Utterly alone,

Tempted to wonder

If rejected by God above.

 

A

Terrible, lonely,

Ignominious death.

The Lamb of God,

No last minute reprieve,

Hung there to His final breath.

 

There

Are no sufficient words,

No mode of expressing,

What Jesus suffered

To make us whole,

And take away death’s sting.

 

Oh

My sweet Jesus,

How Your pure heart feels!

And what a depth

Of prodigality

Your glad sacrifice reveals!