Sunday, April 9, 2017

He Knew Me {An Easter Poem}





He knew me.
I mean really knew me.
Knew everything that I had done
Or failed to do.
Yet, I found myself wrapped
In His warm embrace.
I closed my eyes and rested,
Being filled up with His love.
  
He covered my tattered rags
With His woolen robe,
The color of blood.
I breathed in his scent.
Fresh and woodsy.
And my skin had changed.
It was clean.
Cleaner than if I’d bathed
In a cool mountain spring.

His skin was covered
In what used to cover mine.
This thick oily substance,
Black as tar.
His stride was determined.
He didn’t turn back.
A cypress tree blocked my view.
He was gone.

I scanned the horizon.
But all I could see
Were the misty mountains 
Surrounding this lonely valley.

In the distance,
The clouds parted to reveal
The sin-stained man
(Though not His sin but mine)
Climbing up a mountain.

On the peak stood a lone tree
With two branches,
One on each side.
I rubbed my eyes.
It wasn’t a tree.
And those weren't branches
But a cross.

Dark clouds rolled in,
A shroud covering the valley.
Lightening crashed.
I pulled the robe tighter. 
And beheld the sin-stained man
Being fastened to the cross.
Streams of red flowed down
From his outstretched hands.
Hands that once held me.

He cried out.
Then, fell limp.
No. Don’t die.
I. love. You.

The sky dimmed until black.
Dark as the stain
That once covered me.
The sin that He took upon Himself.

I huddled against a nearby rock,
Trembling and weeping.
Exhaustion overtook me.

When I awoke, there was a light.
But not the sun.
From within the mountain.
A circle of light,
 Bursting forth.

Within the circle,
A silhouette.
His.
He was alive.
I cried out
But not from sorrow.
My Savior, my King.
Please come back.
Please take me home.

The sun peeked over the horizon.
Gone.
Don’t leave me.
I don’t want to be alone.

A voice.
Not outside but within.
Deep in my heart.
“You’ll never be alone again.
I will come back.
Soon.
Remember.
You are mine.
And, you have work to do.”

"He made Him Who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might have the righteousness of God in Him."
2 Corinthians 5:21