THE LIVING CROSS

I was dead, a fractured timber, with a gnarled and rough hewn face,
Bereft of all the beauty that once the eye could trace.

Just cracked and splintered lumber, cut and shaped to do a chore
That would someday measure evil with an arching, damning score.

Those soldiers yanked me up and slammed me down upon a man,
Bruising neck and shoulders, torn as only whippings can.

At once I felt a surge of life dart thru my dried-out frame,
My contact with this wounded man made me alive again.

I felt the sap of vibrant life renew my withered core
And surge of joyous, tingling spark, just like the days of yore.

I felt those hands that held me as He carried me along,
And reveled in the surge of joy that filled my heart with song.

But this joy was interrupted when He dropped me to the ground.
‘Twas a painful thump, then scraping as He dragged me all around.

I came to grasp the nature of His halting stumbling stride;
To feel the awful pressure of His grief and strain inside.

I soon began to sense the pain that overwhelmed His heart;
To realize that I was soon to have a mirrored part.

The man to whom they gave the job to tote me half the way
Did surely feel his burden was alive that eerie day.

They threw Christ’s battered body hard upon my stretched out bands
And drove those rusty spikes in me, thru my creator’s hands.

This trembling beam was overwhelmed, as closely He was pressed,
To hear Him breathe those muffled prayers, denied to all the rest.

This man whose love could give new life to others starkly dead,
Whose very touch would turn their life to power and praise instead,

Had shared with me the song of life that true forgiveness sings,
The quenching of the cruel curse that disobedience brings.

by Rowland Mings

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