5

THE DEATH
ON THE CROSS

Jesus hangs there high above the world,
pleading for all people
for all time
to love one another.
“Greater love than this no one has
that he lay down his life for his friends”

Jesus hangs there begging us
with arms outstretched,
pinned back,
to forgive one another,
every time someone hurts us,
every time someone crucifies us.

Eat hatred.
Drink mistakes.
Bear with one another.

Yet the world rejects
that message of the cross as stupid.

The world rejects
what the world is waiting for.

And so to keep Jesus out of our lives,
they killed Jesus,
outside the city,
in a place they could avoid.

He hangs there on that cross
high above the crowd,
high above the altar,
high above the churches,
casting a shadow on the world.

“We adore you O Christ
and we bless you
because by your holy cross
you have redeemed the world.”

Crosses.
Road crosses.
Paths cross.
Love crosses.

The possibility of love or despair.

My way going against your way - the cross.

The inability to get along with each other - the cross.

Yet we wear them around our neck,
and pin them on bedroom walls,
and often they become as meaningless
as a book of matches.

I have come to cast fire on the earth.

Jesus forgave us
for we do not know what we are doing.

Mary does.

She kneels there beneath the cross,
beneath the tree.

Present with Jesus till the end.
She feels everything –
the blood,
the crude remarks from the crowd,
and then the last words of love
that flowed from his lips.

She knows that somehow
all this has a reason,
that it’s all part of the Father’s plan.

Somehow this crucifixion
is the answer to evil.

Somehow this cross
is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
hatred and love.

Like Mary,
all of us must leave the city
and climb to the top of this hill
and sit under this tree
and eat of the fruit of this tree
and eat of the it as Mary did.

The new Eve offers us
the fruit of it to eat.
It’s Christ.

Christ through this sacrifice gives of himself to eat.
Blessed is the fruit of you womb, Jesus.