A poem on the Cross based on John 16.31-33
Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
You will leave me, but He won’t.
You feel abandoned, but I don’t.
You’ve heard it said “Cursed is he
Who judged by us hangs on a tree.”
“Father, forgive!” is what I said.
You expect despair instead.
But the gospel there was writ by me
In the language of Our unity.
“But,” you ask, “What sort of diction
Would utter cries of dereliction?”
“He hangs abandoned!” you surmise.
But I was ne’er alone. Surprise!
Come closer then and take a look,
I got those words from your own Book!
I suffered what drives you insane,
Drank it down, all the pain,
From inside it all to say,
“I am my Father’s anyway!”
Did you really think that Hell,
Would God’s defeat know how to spell?
Not in all eternity
Could conceivability
Conjure up a way to severe
Son from Father. No, not ever.
(Tom Belt)
