The Agony of Love(jdl) The Agony of Love


With a piercing cry of torment
the breathless sky shrank in horror
as the hammer sliced the air
and drove the nail through His outstretched hand.
His flesh
ripped and bled
where the rusty spikes gored His limbs
and held Him to the tree.
The thorns of the crown He had come to wear
pierced and cut his brow
His life blood trickling slowly
to the outstretched earth below.

A crowd glared on with loathing,
spitting in his face,
shaking their fists,
and shrieking to Him,
"Save yourself, 'King'!"

Outraged at the senseless beings
that crawled on her back,
the earth writhed,
incensed with fury
until her crust split
and spit the dead from her bowels.

The sun boiled blood scarlet
and the high noon sky
turned black as ash,
raging rampant in its wrath.

The innermost depths of the being of God
were wrent asunder as He felt the anguish
of His one and only son
and suddenly knew He had made a mistake.
He could bear no more.
With the power of His pain at His fingertips
He stretched forth His mighty hands
to snatch His son from the clutches of savage man
and crush the earth forevermore...
When from the cross that bound Him,
Christ raised His face to the thundering heavens
and cried aloud,
"Abba Father,
Forgive them!!
They don't understand what they do!"
And His voice,
throbbing like a naked heart
severed from the bosom of mankind,
melted the wrath of the Father,
Who saw the tears that spilled from His Son's eyes,
so filled with the agony of love
they became the eyes of the world
crying out to its creator for redemption and life.

The heart of God was pierced
as though a huge thorn had penetrated deep into His breast,
and He tore away forever
the curtain that separated Him from mankind,
and forgave man,
and forgot his sin and savagery,
seeing nothing but the love for mankind
that radiated from the face of His beloved Son.

Drawing one last breath of life
Christ bowed His head
pronouncing with silent authority,
"It is finished."
And gave up His spirit.
His muscles collapsed
and the nails gouged through his flesh
with the sudden force.
The sin He had borne
crushed his heart beneath its weight
and His life blood poured over the earth
as the blade of a centurion's sword
plunged deep into His side,
assuring His death.

Beneath the cross,
the jeers had long since ceased,
replaced by gaping, silent trembling.
The soldier whose hand
had driven the spike through Christ's feet,
knelt weeping at the foot of the tree he had erected.
As he clung there, contrite and wretched,
a drop of blood from the puncture wound in Christ's feet
trickled down between his fingers
and onto his hand and wrist.
At once he felt a strange sensation
of life giving warmth
surging through every vein in his body,
tingling in the very cells which gave him life.
It seemed to him that his entire body had been filled
with the same intensity of love
that he had seen in the eyes of Christ,
even when the people had spit on Him as He hung in pain.
No longer could he feel the agony of Christ's death
but only the vibrancy of Christ's life
living anew within him.
At that moment
He knew
with all the intensity of his being
that the man he had crucified
lived on in spirit....
He lept to his feet,
raised his arms to the heavens...
and wept.

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