O Sacred Head: Streaming Page CXVI’s “Good Friday to Easter” Day 1

As Easter rapidly approaches, I find myself feeling less and less equipped for what is ahead: Jesus on the Cross, bearing my sins. Even less prepared am I for the reality of the Resurrection – new life for old, us the sinners sharing in His glory. But this is the truth, and it can be a kind of misplaced pride which makes us hide from it, saying, “No, Lord, I don’t deserve it.”

Music is a wonderful way to help doubting hearts connect with knowing heads. Page CXVI have prepared another set of beautiful songs to take us through the end of the Easter season, and it’s with great pleasure that I am able to stream the first track of the album here for your enjoyment, along with a poem I have written in response to their song. Happy listening, and may God continue to prepare your hearts for this yearly reminder of His grace in Jesus.

O Sacred Head

This is not me, I declare

when the mirror shows my shame.

I am better, I insist.

Pull up bootstraps; prove self today.

 

Grace defies. Undeserved,

it holds the mirror, yet it swaps

dead image for renewed:

excuses starved, nothing ventured,

yet all gained.

 

O Sacred Head. I

am wounded when I see myself.

Why are You scarred

when I paint over my shame?

Lent 35: Tuesday of Fifth Week

Wait, and serve.
The household needs food and
the garden needs pruning;
the vineyard needs tending,
the truth must be stored.

Serve, and trust.
The master, though absent,
both sees and will honour
your everyday efforts
in deed and in heart.

Trust, and fear.
He won’t be long coming
though days seem to pass.
The day is soon dawning,
the Day that reveals.

Catechism 14

Did God create us unable to keep his law?

No, but because of the disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, all of creation is fallen; we are all born in sin and guilt, corrupt in our nature and unable to keep God’s law.

(New City Catechism)

 

The spirit is willing but the flesh languishes,

new laws created in place of old:

first, If you eat of this fruit you surely won’t die;

now, what I would do, I cannot do.

 

In the bone, this error: entwined

with the impulse behind flights to the sky,

yet sickened, wizened, good trees in bad soil,

good stunted and cast in wrong directions,

 

engines against the Almighty which,

in His will, could be engines of manifold grace,

but legacy bred too deep in the marrow

for any earthly good to remove.

Lent 33: Fifth Sunday of Lent

800px-Underwater_worldUntil we know the depths
Until we know our depth of sin
Until we know the depths we fall
Until we know the deep

Until we know the fear
Until we know to fear the One
Who rightly could cast us astray
Into the depths we seek

Until we know to wait
Until we know to wait and trust
Until we know to trust, the weight
Will deepen where we sink

Until we know to hope
Until we know our hopelessness
Until we know to hope beyond
Our sinking hopelessness

Until we know to cry
Until we know the cry of pain
Which Love lets out on our behalf
Until then, we are dry.

Lent 32: Saturday of Fourth Week

Some will say: Had we been

alive then, we would not have killed

the prophets or despised their words.

Yet the Truth stands to rebuke.

 

In every heart, the secret depths

defy what shines with grace before us,

takes, destroys, the tender things

and carves a throne from bones.

 

Jerusalem, Jerusalem:

the fire comes; the mother longs

to cover you up with her wings.

Yet in your heart you run.

Lent 31: Friday of Fourth Week

And there is feasting!
The slaves go out to call the guests:
Come, come, to the wedding feast of the Son!

The guests hold back.
They have fields to examine, work to do,
slaves to maim and kill…

Villages burn, opportunities lost.
The calls goes out to all who’d hear:
Bring in the beggars and the lame. Come, come, to the feast!

And there is feasting.
The guests ripple with joy. Yet all
must enter clothed by the Son.

Lent 30: Thursday of Fourth Week

Look, the son comes;

the farmers steam at the sight.

The vineyard is theirs! He has no place.

Stone the son; kill the heir.

The vineyard is red with blood.

 

Look, the Son comes;

the farmers quake at the sight.

Rejected, now the cornerstone:

the vineyard’s his. He takes His place.

The blood-red Son ascends.

Lent 29: Wednesday of Fourth Week

Detail from Rembrandt van Rijn, "Christ Driving Money Changes from the Temple"
Detail from Rembrandt van Rijn, “Christ Driving Money Changes from the Temple”

The blind, the lame, are let inside;

the cursed now are blessed.

The king in triumph rides upon

a humble donkey’s colt.

 

The temple tables overturned,

the mind thrown into chaos,

prophecies are rendered true

in ways that chill our hearts.

 

The unexpected king burns bright

with anger at the sham.

He knows the depths of truest Law

and dies to see it kept.

Lent 28: Tuesday of Fourth Week

And what is this that we now hear?
The workers who arrived too late –
the lazy, the beggars, the weak, the lame –
have won the Master’s favour and
have earned equal pay.

What is this that he proclaims,
this carpenter with hands of dust?
The children step aside while dogs
who surely are not fit for crumbs
have places at the feast.

The first are last, the last are first;
grumbles sound in stony hearts.
But broken hearts which yawn and weep
abound in joy, and even stone
can soon be rolled away.