I watched You die in yellow

I watched You die in yellow

As green leaves rushed to inhale gold

In a whirlwind of yellow and orange.

I watched You die in orange

As Your open limbs blazed and dazzled

Like a wide, old, lavish maple

Sweating in orange and red.

I watched You die in red

As unstained blood

Burst forth from Your heart,

As crimson pulsated,

Spreading through Your veins,

Overtaking You

And all those sheltered

In Your sunset colors

Which scatter over brittle wheat fields

And corn stalks cut from sin-cursed ground

As winter's bleak uncertainty

Breathes upon its neck.

I watched You die

And watched You rise -

Your heart is beating -

Over the autumn earth.

Lilies of the Valley

May we wither in the shadow of Your cross,

And as our forms are melting into Yours

May Your blood-drops scatter

Like seeds on the winds of our wastelands.

Then may we spring up like lilies,

Heads bowing heavy with purity,

All through the green, green valley

Of Your sufferings.

*artwork by Mary Delany, "Convallaria Majalis"

At the Foot of Christ's Passion: Sonnet 2

Like a gutted ox is hung to dry, skin splayed,

Wrath wracked and stretched Your arms out on that tree.

And as eternal terrors on You weighed,

You writhed, “My God, why've You forsaken Me?”

In the wasteland of my sin, I watch You thirst.

My conscience, like Your body, has been scraped raw.

And You, though searching frantic, find You're cursed,

The door of heaven shut by holy law.

Like an apple tree that's naked bleeds for spring,

Perhaps Your hands curled upward as You died.

Beneath this bloody tree I want to fling

Myself and lie with my mouth open wide

As blood like wine flows clean and pure and sweet,

A river bursting from Your twisted feet.

    
(Rembrandt, "The Slaughtered Ox")

In the Wake of Christ's Passion: Sonnet 1

He sweeps in holy like a hurricane.

A hammer thunders fiercely from the sky.

He wholly burns in gorgeous, reckless rain

Of grace. Who knew it hurt so much to die?

Did You know in Your passion as He poured

You out like endless water, melted wax?

If I am rendered senseless by guilt's sword,

Were You whom He made sin, split by His ax?

My lonely silver Tree bends passively

To sufferings. The foolishness of God!

With veins of gossamer, invincibly,

I'm held, and wine runs from the press He trod.

I'm killed, I live, I wither, loved by You.

Behold what You have done and to me do.

My feelings are not true

My feelings are not true,

But Christ is God's true Word,

And over all the howls of sin

And lies let this strong voice be heard:

My wickedness won't win,

Though sin crouch at my door,

Though satan and my heart agree,

It's those like me whom He died for.

And even though sin clouds my view,

Here at the cross my eyes can see

Atonement has been made by You

Who ever shelters me.

Silence and Song

It'd break your heart with beauty,

His booming, dangerous voice

Reverberating over the high mount

With smoke and fire cloaked.

As His lawful lyrics

Danced from His holy lips,

With all the others I stood far away

And begged Him not to speak,

For every beat of my dark heart,

Pumping blood like Abel's,

Cried for condemnation.

“Touch and you will die,”

The LORD's voice swirled at Sinai.

After our rebellion

Time and time again,

After all the prophets, all His pleas, our sacrifices then

Silence.

If my conscience dared

Or my ache allowed,

Would I have cried, “Speak! Speak, LORD! Speak!”

And banged upon dark clouds?

He was silent for four-hundred years

Leaving Sinai's song ringing in our ears

Until at last the Sunrise

Set the sky ablaze,

And God's new song resounded strong and sweet, His final Word for always:

Jesus.

And as His blood streams golden

Like a melody,

It speaks a better word than Abel's could,

From wide-armed Calvary,

A round and full and certain word -

Forgiveness of our sins.

The risen Sun of righteousness

Bursts warm from out the clouds

Singing back to God His holy song.

With tender mercy, loud,

He over sickened sinners sings

And flies with healing in His wings.

The Sunrise

Though we sit in darkness

And in death’s shadow lie,

Mercy comes from heaven,

The Sunrise from on high.

See the baby Jesus,

Who in a manger lies.

He’ll speak peace to sinners

When on the Cross He dies.

Because of tender mercy

He cannot lift a limb.

For this He left His throne and

All the seraphim.

In joy we can’t imagine

Jesus used to dwell,

But He comes from heaven

To take upon our hell.

He does not belong here;

He is far too pure,

But for wretched sinners

The Cross He will endure.

This babe dispelled the shadows

We for ourselves had made.

He conquered death forever

When down His life He laid.

 

Man Curved Inward on Himself

Homo incurvatus in se,
like a top-heavy sunflower
hanging its head.
This gravity pulls
like a current too strong,
and my efforts only tighten the noose
that I've tangled 
and tangled 
around my own neck.
I curve hunchback from the weight
of myself, sin, and works.

But You are.
You will carry,
You will bear,
and You will save.
This cross is not too heavy
for such a priest as You.

You. You. You. You.
    You. You. You.

Your blood runs too strong for me,
and I am pulled, unfurled, and freed
by insurmountable grace
that I must bow and receive.

Good Friday

I drove by a lake cloaked in fog and imagined a man drowned there. Sometimes doubt cloaks my mind, far heavier than fog, thoughts that You're a miser, a sadist, a tyrant. I like to pick my scabs to the irrational scarring of my skin, blood under my fingernails, bitten low. Perhaps it's the control. Sometimes the sight of my own blood makes me woozy, like the thought of drawing it out with a piercing needle. Maybe that's control too. I want control and I want freedom and the two are like oil and water.

There was a heavy weight on Your shoulders, far heavier than I know. Did it feel like You were drowning when You hung there so, pushing Yourself up, scraping Your raw back against the wood, struggling for a gasp of air, for life, His smile? I will never know it, never bear it. What was it like for you, a free bird, to be bound? As the blood flowed out and Your heart beat frantic, did water gather around Your heart in sacs full and ready to burst? You were thirsty.

On my way home that day it started to rain, the heavy spring way. It was Good Friday. This day, Father, You did not spare Your Son. This day blood rained down from Your forehead and into Your dearest eyes, and there was no one to wipe them for You. This day life poured out of You. This day, like the water and blood that ran freely from Your pierced side, the floodgates of free love ran pure and clean and just, clean wetness running, rushing, as a river from Your open side. This day You spared nothing. This day You gave everything. This day You purchased my freedom; I'm no longer under law but under grace. This day the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. This day is for freedom, for knowledge, for nearness. Keep me in this freedom of knowing; to know You is eternal life.

On a River in a Valley

Morn after morn

the sun comes blood red
over the mount

to the Valley of Trouble,

Muddy and turbid.

Lamb after lamb -

You break its neck, and it breaks your knees

to stand in the land with your hands

Covered in blood of the innocent dead.

The acid stains eat at your peace,

Feast at your peace with God,

and burn up your skin

into festering sores.

What hope is there

for the leprous soul,

the adulterous soul,

the traitor of God?

“Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

The blood of the Son flows in rivers of red,

as He drowns in the wrath of God.

His heart is spilling,

Dousing the sinning in

Cleansing blood.

“I AM WILLING!”

He rises and

the Valley of Achor

is a door of Hope.

Sacred Communion

It is still and sacred,
This opening of me to You;
This opening of dirty hands;
This table of surrender, bread, and blood;
This giving, giving, giving that You do;
A grace from open, gracious You.

It's a reckless river,
This cleansing blood that's coursing through
The darkest depths of all of me;
This cup of water poured out pure and fierce;
This quenching for a burning soul from You;
A quiet gift from lamb-like You.

It is open access,
This curtain that's been torn in two;
Your broken body blessing me;
This opening of wounds then presence pleased;
This drawing near of prodigals to You;
A bread so beautiful it seems untrue.

But You are true
    and certain.
And as I finger signs and seals
Your heart pours into mine what's real-
Our sure
     though unseen
Union,
Me + You,
Communion.

The Righteousness of God in Isaiah

    God has given us a treasure of unexpected righteousness. It’s a righteousness that will break your heart with joy, like a sunrise after a moonless night, like a crocus at winter’s end. It blossoms so beautiful that it seems untrue, but it’s utterly true. He has told us in Isaiah (and in all His Scriptures) and He cannot lie.
    This righteousness doesn’t come from us and it never could. He looks for righteousness in us, the people He’s made and has ever only shown good, but He finds none (Isaiah 5:7). Isaiah paints a bleak picture of us. So lost are we in our unrighteousness that “all (absolutely all) our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (64:6). We make ourselves our own gods, thinking we can decide what is good, we who are “wise in [our] own eyes” (5:21). Like the king of Babylon, our pomp will bring us to Hell (14:11). God taunts the Jews, who are just as wicked at heart as the nations around them, and we are no better than they are, wearing our proud crowns atop our kingly heads, decking ourselves in fading flowers that are nothing to Him and His beauty (28:1, 5). Isaiah exposes us as not only wicked, but foolishly wicked, irrational in our idolatry. The things we choose to worship are “less than nothing” and make us an “abomination” just like them (42:24). Worshiping things that are not gods, things we make into gods, as if such things could ever be above us and bless us, we “feed on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, ‘Is there not a lie in my right hand?’” (44:20). But “there is no other god besides [Him], a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides [Him]” (45:21).
    And a righteous God He is indeed. He is not like our idols and not like us. The Holy God “shows Himself holy in righteousness” (5:16). Isaiah reveals a zealous God who punishes the prideful and unrighteous nations, laying low the lofty idols and counselors of Egypt (19:1), defiling the “pompous pride of all glory” of Tyre (23:9). Against the fallen glory of the nations, the judgment of even the entire earth, the world hears “of glory to the Righteous One” (24:16). Such a glory is darkness for the unrighteous ones against whom the LORD sets Himself.
    And somehow the Sun of Righteousness rises with healing in His wings.* It seems contradictory that a righteous God could rule and that such a rule could be good for us. How can Isaiah write of the result of righteousness as peace, quietness, and trust (32:17-18) in a world where “no one does good, not even one?”** Christ sits on the throne of David with a scepter of righteousness in His hand (9:7), justice and righteousness, which go hand in hand, and yet this King with righteousness about His waist brings good to the poor of the earth, as if the poor were not unrighteous (11:4-5). But it is not that the poor are more righteous than any other. It is that Jesus comes for the poor, to save those who come to Him with no righteousness of their own and who know that God is the only savior, the only one who can bear the burden of our sin (43:11, 46:4).*** In Isaiah, righteousness and salvation are meaningfully linked; the author sets the two against one another as parallels. When His righteousness draws near, His salvation also goes out (46:12-13, 54:5-8). He “speaks in righteousness, mighty to save” (63:1). The climactic consolation of Isaiah (or at the very least one of them) is that, when there was no hope for us in ourselves, “the righteous one, my servant, [makes] many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities” (53:11). How beautiful is Jesus! God in His righteousness does not only judge us in our lack; He brings His righteousness near to us, decking us out in a robe of righteousness and garments of salvation, the imputed righteousness of our Savior, “as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels” (61:10). To His glory (60:21), we wear this radiant righteousness and burning salvation, no more cast off, polluted and poor as we are in ourselves, and we are delighted in by God, our God who justifies the ungodly (62:1-5).**** “I will greatly rejoice in LORD; my soul shall exult in my God” (61:10).
   
*Malachi 4:2 and Charles Wesley’s “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” ESV
**Romans 3:12, ESV
***Matthew 11:28, ESV
****Romans 3:26, ESV

Quote: The Rent Veil

The broken body and shed blood of the Lord had at length opened the sinner's way into the holiest. And these were the tokens not merely of grace, but of righteousness. That rending was no act either of mere power or of mere grace. Righteousness had done it. Righteousness had rolled away the stone. Righteousness had burst the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. It was a righteous removal of the barrier; it was a righteous entrance that had been secured for the unrighteous; it was a righteous welcome for the chief of sinners that was now proclaimed.

Long had the blood of bulls and goats striven to rend the veil, but in vain. Long had they knocked at the awful gate, demanding entrance for the sinner; long had they striven to quench the flaming sword, and unclasp the fiery belt that girdled paradise; long had they demanded entrance for the sinner, but in vain. But now the better blood has come; it knocks but once, and the gate flies open; it but once touches the sword of fire, and it is quenched. Not a moment is lost. The fulness of the time has come. God delays not, but unbars the door at once. He throws open His mercy-seat to the sinner, and makes haste to receive the banished one; more glad even than the wanderer himself that the distance, and the exclusion, and the terror are at an end for ever.

O wondrous power of the cross of Christ! To exalt the low, and to abase the high; to cast down and to build up; to unlink and to link; to save and to destroy; to kill and to make alive; to shut out and to let in; to curse and to bless. O wondrous virtue of the saving cross, which saves in crucifying, and crucifies in saving! For four thousand years has paradise been closed, but Thou hast opened it. For ages and generations the presence of God has been denied to the sinner, but Thou hast given entrance,-- and that not timid, and uncertain, and costly, and hazardous; but bold, and blessed, and safe, and free. [...]

"May I then draw near as I am, in virtue of the efficacy of the sprinkled blood?" Most certainly. In what other way or character do you propose to come? And may I be bold at once? Most certainly. For if not at once, then when and how? Let boldness come when it may, it will come to you from the sight of the blood upon the floor and mercy-seat, and from nothing else. It is bold coming that honours the blood. It is bold coming that glorifies the love of God and the grace of His throne. "Come boldly!" this is the message to the sinner. Come boldly now! Come in the full assurance of faith, not supposing it possible that that God who has provided such a mercy-seat can do anything but welcome you; that such a mercy-seat can be anything to you but the place of pardon, or that the gospel out of which every sinner that has believed it has extracted peace, can contain anything but peace to you.

The rent veil is liberty of access. Will you linger still? The sprinkled blood is boldness,-- boldness for the sinner, for any sinner, for every sinner. Will you still hesitate, tampering and dallying with uncertainty and doubt, and an evil conscience? Oh, take that blood for what it is and gives, and go in. Take that rent veil for what it indicates, and go in. This only will make you a peaceful, happy, holy man. This only will enable you to work for God on earth, unfettered and unburdened; all over joyful, all over loving, and all over free. This will make your religion not that of one who has everything yet to settle between himself and God, and whose labours, and duties, and devotions are all undergone for the purpose of working out that momentous adjustment before life shall close, but the religion of one who, having at the very outset, and simply in believing, settled every question between himself and God over the blood of the Lamb, is serving the blessed One who has loved him and bought him, with all the undivided energy of his liberated and happy soul.

For every sinner, without exception, that veil has a voice, that blood a voice, that mercy-seat a voice. They say, "Come in." They say, "Be reconciled to God." They say, "Draw near." They say, "Seek the Lord while He may be found." To the wandering prodigal, the lover of pleasure, the drinker of earth's maddening cup, the dreamer of earth's vain dreams,--they say, there is bread enough in your Father's house, and love enough in your Father's heart, and to spare,--return, return. To each banished child of Adam, exiles from the paradise which their first father lost, these symbols, with united voice, proclaim the extinction of the fiery sword, the re- opening of the long-barred gate, with a free and abundant re-entrance, or rather, entrance into a more glorious paradise, a paradise that was never lost.*

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.**

*From Horatius Bonar's The Rent Veil
**Hebrews 10:19-23, ESV

Quote: The Cross Once Seen

    "Hear the just law- the judgment of the skies!
He that hates the truth shall be the dupe of lies:
And he that will be cheated to the last,
Delusions strong as Hell shall bind him fast.
But if the wanderer his mistake discern,
Judge his own ways, and sigh for a return,
Bewildered once, must he bewail his loss
For ever and for ever?  No- the cross! 
[...]
There and there only is the power to save.
There no delusive hope invites despair;
No mockery meets you, no deception there.
The spells and charms that blinded you before
All vanish there and fascinate no more.
    I am no preacher, let this hint suffice-
The cross once seen is death to every vice"

From "The Progress of Error" by William Cowper