While we were yet sinners.
Christ suffered for us.
Died for me.
He was stricken. Smitted. Afflicted. Forsaken. Dead in a completely gory trauma.
And there was darkness.
Despair.
Agony.
Unknowns.
Hell.
Many Questions
What about that tree–
the one that would be
sawn asunder,
its limbs
lashed to a T
to brace his
bruised body?
Did he plant it?
Give it water?
Did he bless
or curse it
like the fig?
As a sapling
did it foresee
a day when nails
would join
its marrow,
its meat,
to the hands
and feet
of the Lord?
One Answer
They made my sturdy limbs
a party to their mutiny.
Forgive Man, Lord,
and me.
~Nikki Grimes,
“The cross is often referred to as a tree – a poetic reference perhaps,
but a tree did provide the material
from which the cross was made.
According to John’s Gospel,
Jesus was the Lord of Creation.
Among other things, that means the tree on which he hung
owed its life to him.
I was intrigued by the idea of relationship
between Christ and the tree.
The first poem led to the second.”