A Good Friday Poem

Forget the formula
the frequency at which we fumble to find a way to figure out our freedom.

I know it’s hard to hear

for we have been hoodwinked and harpooned into fear
and guilt
and shame
finding ourselves to blame
for far too long.

Maybe it was
because
the cross looked like an invitation
for a calculation
a plus sign
we thought there was something to solve
to add
an equation
for our salvation.

I know it’s hard to hear.

But let us
If just for a moment
please
imagine
love.

You know
The moment before the cross
when Jesus kneeled and washed feet
the very place where we too can meet
love of Yahweh
here, today
in the love we have for neighbour
slave and owner
for those of colour
refugee, royalty, rebels, religious-other.
for sister, brother, father, mother.
for the orphaned, abandoned
for gay, transgender and straight
and for ourselves
so that we might love
not hate.  

A commandment so great 
it turned the world on its head
it upset the systems and structures
that fed
off of fighting and famishing folk
into oppression
into subjugation
into death and humiliation.

And what better instrument
to silence the suppressed
protecting powers and principalities from any loss
than the cross?

this death instrument
that now sits and hangs upon my neck.
This death instrument
was nothing but a threat
to those who might speak up
who might act
like Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross upon his back.

I know it’s hard to hear
But what if our systems and structures
of power and patriarchy
of privilege and poverty
of prostitution and prejudice
were the ones to silence Jesus
not Jews, not Greeks, not us?

What if Jesus’ life
of healing and empowering
uniting and reconciling
was the cure
to an empire gluttonous through stockpiling?

I know it’s hard to hear
But what if Jesus died
because they thought change was too hard?
What if Jesus died
because he wanted to destroy the scorecard?
What if Jesus died
because he wanted to take apart the status quo?
I know it’s hard to hear
But the cross is not a quid pro quo.
Its symbolism is in its undertow.

And in his torture and in his death
somehow he became more human
like the rest of us

Knowing what it was to hurt
to be humiliated, humbled, and horrified
To be left high and dry,
heart-stricken
as he cried
‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

To know what it was
to hear_____ in reply
And to know what it was
To die.

I know it’s hard to hear
But what if the cross reminds us too
of what we are called to die to?

And this is not some call to become ashamed
or become martyrs to a cause

but to simply pause.

To breathe

To let go

To cry out too, “My God…”

To sit in the discomfort in a world that we divide
as each side
yells ‘crucify’!

to sit in the eternal instead

not in a hell below
or a heaven above
but in this moment alone
where Jesus tells us to love.