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 now began 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.
