Red lights flash
across a violent screen,
the survival of ghetto life,
a canvas of shattered dreams,
the Catholic Crusades
and the Islamic Conquests,
a medieval plague of suffering.
Jesus died forsaken.
Self-appointed
not drafted.
Surrendered
not taken.
From eternity,
the Godhead decreed
the second Person
of the Trinity,
a kamikaze Pilot on a rescue mission,
saving soon-to-be-executed prisoners
by flying into enemy territory
to be shot down,
captured
and tortured,
knowing what it’s like
to feel hope deflated,
left for dead
alone and hated
for a million and one
enslaved motives and failures
not His own
but for an all-star cast
from the least
to the lost
to the last:
from dangerous peasants
who subscribe to an anthropology
of communism
to duplicitous priests
like wolves among sheep
to death row prisoners
whose parents drank
from the same glass of narcissism.
Unforgiving fists
swing like Medusa’s snakes
without tongues
and heads,
striking the Achilles’ heal
of heroes unsung
and kind words unsaid.
The phantom of a tombstone,
awaiting His great awakening,
awarded a bouquet of bruises,
spotted purple posies
stretched around spotless bones.
Victory over fists of rage
cried out from the grave.
A carcass with a pulse,
a miracle dipped in myrrh,
perfumed a Jewish beard
and consecrated a blameless soul,
snipping sutures of sin
with prophetic scissors
to seal open wounds
for us
to be set free,
to live counter-culturally:
vagabonds in mansions,
ex-cons clean shaven.
From an empty tomb
a bright light reflecting
a mirror-image
of a dove descending,
empowering former ravens
to ascend above the clouds
and the violence,
shattered dreams
and plagues
to be baptized with tongues of fire,
consuming hearts refined,
a pilgrimage for all souls
to submit to the Spirit’s power
and to emulate the Son
to genuflect before the Father,
living life to the fullest,
suffering with joy
to the last hour.