Son of Man, Lamb of God,
did you despise that Thursday night?
Did the cup’s bitter taste
tell the secrets You wished weren’t true?
Did it whisper of all things to come undone,
unraveled within
Your earthly eternity?
For not Your will but His was done.
You told of Your soulful sorrow
that begged of the cup to pass,
but You received a scarlet robe,
a crown of thorns,
as the power of darkness mocked and beat.
You walked into the hands of those
who accused such perfect innocence
to release the guilty man
whose heart and soul
and bloody hands
resemble so closely what used to be mine.
Mysteriously, Your work
of the life I refused to live
receives the payment in full
of what I chose instead;
for You loved me in mercy first
so that in justice I trust your death
to be gifted with such eternal life
and imparted with true righteousness
from Your meritorious splendor.
You did not save Yourself,
instead yielding up Your spirit
for the earth to quake and the rocks to split
as such evil believed its victory.
The voices that shouted to crucify,
some familiar when they shouted “Messiah,”
so insistent now upon Your death,
demanding the defeat of the Savior.
