On the Road to Jerusalem One Friday in Spring
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted - Isaiah
Those coming into the city
may have wondered about the small group
on the hill,
wondered idly about who was being executed
so close to the sabbath,
and at the feast-time, too.
Perhaps they shuddered at the thought
of such a shameful death
coming to them or theirs.
Perhaps they felt pity
that anyone would die that way.
Perhaps they stopped a moment to taunt.
Did they notice
a knot of women
standing close,
oblivious to the soldiers,
or to the mockers,
lost in their grief,
waiting?
Did they notice
how the sky darkened,
as if even the heavens
longed to weep?
Suspended in that place
where heaven and earth meet,
an offering of
love unfathomable,
marked by the red liquid of life
given up in sacrifice.
You wait there,
feeling the life you give
ebb away drop by drop,
throb by throb,
swallowed up
by others' sin,
you,
both scapegoat
and sacrifice,
a poem of love,
a sign of contradition,
Lord.