Writing anything about Good Friday always feels like treading on holy ground. I don’t feel
we can begin to understand it from Jesus’ perspective. So today a trio of poems from people
stood there.
Mary Magdalene (Mark 15:40)
I’d met him
When all hope was gone.
Each day
Dragging myself
Through meaningless routines
Whilst inside
Soul wracked
With constant pain
The past a prison
The present numb repetition
The future bleak
Every moment
Feeling only lost
And alone in the dark.
He only touched me once.
I stood,
Eyes to the ground
Ashamed of all I’d done -
And was -
And gently
He lifted my chin
So I could
Meet his gaze.
I could not name then
What I saw there
So unfamiliar.
I’ve learnt now
To give it words
But then there were none.
I only knew
That all I was
And could be
Was held in his eyes:
Not what I’d done
Or hadn’t done
But the person he saw
Beneath the smiling death
My life had become.
And so I loved him.
And stand here now
Only because of that.
Enduring his darkness
As once he did mine
And will do
To the end.
John at the foot of the cross (John 19:25-27)
I blame myself.
Standing here, holding her up,
What else can I do?
I feel the anger, the self-hatred rising
Like bile to my throat:
Better that than the pain,
The crucifying pain
As I watch him,
My best friend.
Some friend I was.
I should have stopped it.
Stopped them.
Stopped him.
Stopped…
Instead I stand here
Impotent with rage and agony
Wanting to reach up,
Pull him down
So I can lie again
On his breast
And feel the heart beat
Of his love.
And then I meet his eyes
And, amid the anguish
And the isolation
That I sense
In his soul
I hear his words
And see that love again.
I feel that I have never deserved it less
Or known it more.
The Roman centurion (Mark 15:39)
Welcome
Was an unfamiliar experience.
Fear - a cowering
Not so much from me
As from what
I represented –
Was what I saw
As people drifted into doorways
Or passed by,
Eyes to the ground
Lest they catch
My unwelcome attention.
And that seemed enough.
Somehow apprehension
Or the curled lip of a sneer
Better than no recognition
And the dread
Of seeming
Non-existence
In the eyes of others.
And so it was that day.
Mothers held their children close;
No-one met my eyes
Except the foolish few
Who stared
With arrogant hostility.
Even the crucified
Looked neither for pity from me
Nor mirrored my curiosity
Of them
Being long past either.
And then I looked again
Expecting to see
Another brigand Jew -
Some thief or rebel
And I cared not which.
Yet as I caught his eye
I saw what I had
Never seen before:
A tender knowing
of all I had been,
all I had despairingly become
but somehow also all
I ‘d ever longed to be.
And as I gazed
I realised -
An agony of recognition –
His arms
Stretched out upon that cross
Were held open to me
In welcome.
By Jeannie Kendall
Comments