Poems of Passion Week, Good Friday

Cowards
Luke 23

Like beach volleyball
played with a live coal,
Pilate and Herod
toss him back and forth.
His innocence scorches.
As the crowd grows
angry and restless,
they drop the coal.
The crowd wins.
Jesus loses.
(The whole world wins.)

The Politician’s Question
John 18:28-40

What is truth?
the politician asks,
not sticking
around for an answer.
The question hangs
in the air while
the man born
to be king awaits
his coronation
in silence.

Why?
Mark 15

Along with T.S. Eliot,
I also wonder
why we call
that Friday
Good.

Last Breath
Luke 23:46

With a loud voice
Jesus committed his spirit
to God and breathed his last,
we’re told. Last breath
from the One who was there
when God breathed life
into the human race.
Blew revival on a pile of bones,
embodied the Spirit wind
that enlivened a people for God.
But this breath was not really
his last. It would only lead
to a new and living way
for people to breathe.
The last breath would become
the first in God’s strange
biology.