By Not Known
The place where Jesus died
was not much really.
The kind of place that every town has,
where idlers come to gawk,
unwanted people find their home,
and tired soldiers do their duty,
while others make a quick buck
trading on death’s misery.
Far from the pleasing form of the temple
with its gold and purble fabric,
neat symmetry, fine furniture,
tidy ritual, with a holy God confined to a box.
Far too from the order of Mandai
death – packed, processed and refined –
mourners moved from stage to stage
more like a factory than a place of grief.
The place where Jesus died:
an offence to the tidy traditionalists
with their prim sense of what is right –
‘God on a Cross – what a scandal!‘
Nonsence too for the urban sophisticates –
‘God on a Cross – what folly is this?‘
But to those who believe,
a place of heavenly correspondence,
where justice and mercy kiss
And,
where the love of God
shatters the gates of hell.
A holy place.