Come for Me
 
At Your feet with Your
Mother of Sorrows
I watch Your Blood soak into
The wood of Your Cross,
That Precious substance lost so soon.
Will Your Precious
Words be lost as well?
As we abandoned Your love and Your body,
Will we so with Your Words and Your Life?
 
I stare at my blood-stained hands.
I stare at Your Mother’s swollen eyes.
Anything, avoiding the look I know I must take
Into Your eyes of love
Crucified for me.
I feel Your eyes on me.
The tears come.
Still Your eyes burn into my soul.
My heart, my Lord, cannot survive
Your eyes of Love from that Blood-soaked Cross.
 
I listen.
You are whispering prayers.
Names, You are calling names
To Your Father.
Is my name among them?
Please forgive me, Lord, my heart cries out
As tears blur my eyes.
 
Slowly, I build up to the Truth
I must not deny.
I start with Your feet.
Oh, my Lord! Those feet
So torn, holding You barely
On Your torturous Cross.
The overflow of my heart
Washes Your feet.
My love anoints Your feet
With a kiss.
Your precious feet that
Walked our earth for us
Already grow cold from loss
Of Your Precious Blood.
 
My eyes move to Your chest
As Your body heaves to receive breath.
Your Sacred Heart labors
Crushed by Your body’s weight
But more by the weight of our sins.
My arm around Your Mother now,
We watch together
Knowing the end is near.
 
My eyes slowly raise to meet the eyes
Of the King of Love, crucified.
I grip Your Mother’s hand
Unable to breathe.
There, Your eyes like a magnet
Draw mine to Yours.
 
There the most beautiful,
Most Precious Love Holds me in His power.
My body could be dead
For all I know--
My heart is not there,
It is gone now, with Him
Caught in His unearthly desire
Begging me to come in
To His Kingdom of Grace.
I cannot move.
I cannot breathe.
There is a pain in His eyes
That speaks to the core of my soul.
 
Let me do anything to appease Your pain, my Lord!
There is a love in His eyes
That burns my body, sears my soul
And captures my heart
Forever bonded to Your eyes of Love.
 
Once there, there is no turning back,
There is no looking away.
My eyes belong to Yours,
My heart, my soul, it is all one
Locked into Your soul-stirring look of Love.
I become Yours forever.
Into Your hands I offer my soul.
 
As the Light fades from Your eyes
You offer Your Spirit to Your loving Father
And You are gone into Him
As I into You.
Take me with You I breathe
As Your body slumps,
Only an empty shell now
Like me, without You.
 
Come for me, my Lord, my God,
When You return, I pray
Still gripping Your Mother’s hand.

Your Perfect Cross

You hang helplessly on this Cross.
I kneel before You,
The One whose Words
Of Kindness and Love,
Of Forgiveness and Mercy,
Move my heart.
My body, as I draw near, shudders
From the pain I see.
Every part of Your Body
Screams out in pain
With no hope of relief
Until it is finished.
 
I draw closer still, my Lord,
Gritting my teeth against the pain.
My eyes, unable to behold
The full nature of Your torture,
Lose focus so
I approach with my heart.
 
Nearer still I come,
My heart longing to embrace
And free You from the pain and
Rejection of our world.
Can I not shield You
From the hate? The cold hearts?
The arrogance? The pain?
 
At Your feet now,
Leaning on Your Cross,
My heart breaks to feel Your pain.
But as I enter deeper,
There is another world,
Another kingdom here,
Gripping Your Cross.
Your Spirit of Love engulfs me,
Bathes me in its clear, perfect,
Silent sweetness Surrounding You even now
And touching those
Willing to touch Your Cross,
To enter into Your pain,
Thus passing through to
Your Perfect Grace,
Your Perfect Love,
Releasing from
Your Perfect Cross.
 
 

The Nail-puller

Entranced by Your Sacrificial Love,
I push through the sneering, arrogant crowd.
At Your feet, I helplessly watch You struggle
And let go of that last painful breath.
 
Held in Your trance of love,
I hear not the clamor of the crowd
As they give up their sport.
I notice not the darkness
Overtaking the landscape.
I hear only the silent, pain-filled roar
Of Your Loving Father’s voice
As the earth trembles from
His passionate cry.
I only see Your face
As the tears of Your Father
Streak the last drops of Blood
Across Your ravaged Body.
Your Mother’s tears join His at Your feet.
 
I struggle to release Your hands
From the grip of the heartless nails.
Who are we that we should treat You like this?
As You are released from Your Cross,
Your lifeless Body falls against my shoulder.
I catch You as a mother catches her child
Wrapping my arms about You
Struggling not to let You go.
 
Holding Your limp form that once held
The Prince of Peace,
The Lord of Love,
The Son of God,
For a few tender moments
I cradle Your punctured head
Against my shoulder,
Your pierced Heart, now silent,
Leaves its mark on mine.
 
Then lowering You so lovingly,
I gently lay You in Your Mother’s waiting arms.
As once she gathered You to her
As her only Son, Her loving Savior,
She cradles you once again.
And as she once covered Your small body
Against the cold night,
She covers Your torn and pierced body
With Your burial cloth.
Every wound is forever branded on her heart
And emblazoned in her mind.
 
You are hers now,
No longer useful to the cold world
That knew You not.
They do not recognize the latent power
In Your dead body.
You lay peacefully now in Your Mother’s arms.
 
I see now on myself
The marks of Your wounds
You have left on me.
The dirt, sweat and Blood
Will fade in time.
But the marks on my heart remain.
 

A Disciple’s Lament

I crouch a short distance from Your tomb
Just beyond the soldier’s sight and hearing,
As close to You as I can without being discovered.
My body is at once numb and aching from crying
Yet the tears still pour like a river from my swollen eyes
And my body shakes with futile sobs.
Why am I here alive, a sinner,
While You, King of Life, lie dead in a tomb?
What beauty, what justice, what love can there be
In a world that slaughters it’s best,
The Messiah sent to love us,
Sent to lead us home to the Father?
 
How can there be any joy for me now
In anything of this heartless world?
Friends, why did you not support Him?
Rocks, why did you not sing forth His praise
Angels, why did you not rescue Him
Or comfort Him in His agony?
Father, where is Your love for Your only Son
That You would allow Him to die like this
In so cold a world unwilling to love Him in return?
How can I understand Your Heart
At once cruel and forgiving?
Will You help me understand
Why a man yet God so Precious, so Pure,
So Life-giving, so healing,
Was Himself so brutally mistreated, so misunderstood,
So ignored, rejected and unloved?
 
Father, Your words in my heart
Tell me of the love of a Father
As seen through the love and life of the Son.
Your words in my heart tell me
Of how long You have loved Your people
And longed for their faithful return;
How long they have rejected You.
Your words in my heart tell me
Of a lonely tomb in our hearts,
Ignored, misunderstood,
Even hated if that be possible.
How cold and dark like the tomb
Must our hearts feel to You,
O Giver of Life.
Yet You wait in silence,
Like Your Son in His tomb,
For life to return to our hearts
And welcome You in.
 
O Father! O Son! O Holy Spirit!
O Promised One!
Help me to prepare my heart
For Your return as You promised!
Come to my poor darkened heart
And bring it Light and Hope again!
Bring Your Sacred Heart to Life in me
That I may love, not despair.
 
Come bring us Hope,
Though we gave You little;
Come bring us Peace,
Though we left You none;
Come bring me joy
That died with You;
Come bring me love
That I may love You as You desire;
Come and resurrect Your Heart in mine.
Do not leave me, as You promised.
 
I will wait for You, my Lord,
Keeping my lonely vigil.
If You die, my heart dies with You;
But if You live, live in me!

The Narrow Door
 
When You stood before the judges
And they accused You, belittled You,
When they tried to show
How small Your mind was
Compared with theirs,
Did You hurt from their attacks?
Did You long to show them
The Mind of the Eternal God
Which You possessed?
Did the Truth in You beg to be known?
Did You long to expose their hypocrisy,
Their madness, their cynicism?
Did You beg Your Father
For the humiliation of Your mind to cease?
Did it pain you deeply
When in Your humiliation
You could return with only Silence?
 
When You carried Your Cross
Through streets jammed with Your enemies,
But worse, Your friends,
And Your face was so swollen from blows
That You were hardly recognizable,
With the Crown of humiliation on Your head,
The stripes of humiliation on Your back,
With the weight of their sins on Your shoulder,
When You looked at Your reflection
Mirrored in their eyes,
Did You want to lay that Cross down
And walk away?
Did You cringe from their pity?
Did You wonder if it was worth it
As Your Body, stripped, beaten,
Nailed to a Cross,
Dripping Your Precious Blood,
Felt so foreign
To the Perfection which is You?
As their spit stung
Your open wounds,
Did You call out to Your Father,
Feeling forsaken in Your humiliation?
Did You long to be seen as You are,
And not like this?
 
When Your Sacred Heart,
So full of Love for us,
Carried you to the humiliation
Of judgment of mind,
Carried You to the humiliation
Of a Body ravaged and helpless,
And then, in Your last hours,
As Your Heart poured forth Your Love
In Body and Soul,
Did the look of confusion  in Your follower’s eyes
Break Your Heart more in deeper humiliation?
Did You long for them to see Your Sacrifice
As it really was, for them?
Did You long for them to see
Into the riches of Your Heart
And to know the eternal rewards
You were opening for them?
Did Your Sacred Heart ache
With the humiliation of love unreturned
As Your Heart, the center of Your Cross,
Gave all for love in total humiliation?
Did Your Father
Shake His Mighty head in wonder
When as if this  wasn’t enough for us,
We pierced Your already broken Sacred Heart,
To make sure You were dead?
 
Come follow Me, You beckon,
Down the road of humiliation,
The road of Silence,
The road of heart break.
Can we, so weak and small,
Find our strength in You,
To be so humiliated for You?
To mend Your broken Heart
As we share in Your pain?
To come to the riches of Your Sacred Heart
Through the narrow door of humility?