Looking Back: Good Friday?

From April 1973

Good Friday? – by Norman M. Bowman

Of course it was a common way to kill.
Two thieves died with Him on the self-same day,
And hundreds, later, living torches hung
And burned on crosses by the Appian Way.
This Jesus, He was luckier than most –
It often took two days before they died;
His suffering was mercifully brief
Compared with others whom they crucified.
The Cross, indeed, was far too commonplace
To win, just by itself, His case for God.
They looked for signs and wonders, not mere death –
Some demonstration that was really odd.

How can that ancient wrong put right for us
All in mankind that’s sinful and obscene?
Can horror shake us into faith, today?
It entertains us on our TV screen!
Torture is carnal; pain is of the flesh;
Can spirit be redeemed by agony?

What counts is surely the huge confidence
That God would somehow, surely, justify.
You can’t do more to show your trust in Him
Than leave it all to Him to see you through;
You can’t surrender more than life itself
To show you’re sure He won’t abandon you.

They took the body down and buried it.
It could itself do nothing; it was dead.
Dead things can’t rise; they utterly depend
On someone else. All independence fled
They need another Power than their own –
As we do, bound in bondage to our sin,
Although we seem to think we need no help –
Have “come of age” – need only will, to win.
Delusion! We are dead; dead as the Christ
When taken from the Cross. And only if
We wholly trust and are at one with Him
Can we, like Him, be raised by God to life.

"Enough! It is Finished." - A Good Friday reflection

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