We’re at the point of no return on our Lenten journey. A Holy happening is imminent. The day we call Good Friday has arrived. God’s eternal, infinite, unconditional Love is hanging on a cross, made a public spectacle and disgrace for us.

Jesus is marred, pierced, blood-stained and, briefly, just beyond His Father’s reach. The day has dawned when sin meets Saviour, mankind meets its Maker, and our guilt, shame and pain are nailed to a cross of wood, held in place by Love alone, His amazing grace about to be made known.

We can only watch and wonder, our minds unable to fully fathom or clearly comprehend what we see. Our Holy God poured out for you and me….

Bearing infinite love

Jesus, you see faces, look into souls, hear the heartbeat

of every person on the street. You don’t see a faceless throng

pressing together like a swarming sea of anonymity

Even those who barely give you a glance, and those who

sneer, swear or spit as you carry your cross, filled with

venom, hate, while you bear only infinite love and grace

 

How can it be that you bear them no grudge, not even

an ounce of animosity, your heart contracted in love

laced with waves of pity? Yet you know it is their sin

pinning you to a cross, their rage ripping your back

to shreds, their nameless hate nailing your helpless

hands as you reach out, surrendered to your fate

 

And as blood pours from your many wounds, you are

wounded more by the unaccustomed distance, a cloud

between you and your Father, as he has to turn his face

away from his sin-bearing Son, leaving you alone

for the first time—you feel distant and lost—as you

hang limp, wretched, almost ready to give up the ghost

 

Finally, the darkness steals into your soul, making you writhe

within, and you know it won’t be long before you cry

it is finished, and mankind’s release has been secured

by your poured out blood. You gasp out your holy sigh and

rest in death’s embrace for a while—as skies darken and a

curtain is rent to signal the start of a new, living covenant

©joylenton2017

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” ~ Isaiah 53:4-5