This crossbeam my Savior bore down the street,
His battered body, torn, bruised and beat.
He carried till He could no more,
Though His suffering incomplete, there was more in store.
One week before, He was hailed as King,
Now look what one mere week did bring.
“Hosanna, Hosanna,” they said last week,
But now today, mocking, cursing they speak.
They laid Him down to drive steel pins,
Through hands and heels because of my sin.
This makes me as guilty as this Roman soldier,
I may as well be the hammer holder.
Pain the likes of that we’ve never known,
From His thorny halo to His pierced heel bone.
They raised this beam up to the sky,
And there He’d remain until He’d die.
Naked, bleeding, whipped back against timber,
When we have pain, may Him we remember.
Why would God put this on His Son?
It was for me, for me this was done.
Sweat in His eyes, mixed with Blood Divine,
Cramps inconceivable for the longest of time.
He watched as His clothes were gambled away,
His only earthly possessions were taken that day.
Flies, gnats, mosquitoes they had a great feast,
Though tiny and small, unchecked they’re a beast.
The mocking continued from religious-type men,
Does your religion mock Him when you continue in sin?
What a huge crime against God and His Son,
When we fail to consider how our freedom was won.
Wine vinegar, they offered Him on a long stick,
He refused it although He was dry as a brick.
“Forgive them my Father; they know not what they do,”
He said this for me, He said this for you.
Our God wouldn’t save Him from death and the grave,
He did it for us, for our soul to save.
The world became dark and shook to its core,
As He left this mean world and entered death’s door.
In a day of great horror the world lost all its hope,
Until three days later when glad angels spoke.
“He is not here, He is risen this morn,”
And the hope of the world was in a minute reborn.
Out of a tomb and into my heart,
His great Love has filled me from my deepest part.
As we examine these events quite clearly we see,
That they all were done for you and for me.
Tertius
For God so Loved Joel Emerson that He gave His only Begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
A note about “For Me”: Written on an early Thursday before Resurrection Day (Easter) Jesus said He would be in the earth three days and three nights (Matthew 12:40) which seems to me would challenge “Good Friday” as the day of His execution. Wrote it in about an hour and went back to bed wondering what one verse could sum this profound event up. The last two lines came to me as an afterthought and as I got back up to write them down I looked at the digital alarm clock on the head of my bed. It was 3:16.