Tree of Golgotha

How did you feel when they chose you,

chose you to carry our Lord Jesus Christ?

Did your sap leap for joy as it flowed through

or fall still with grief at such sacrifice?

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How did you feel when you watched from afar

as bloodied in pain, our Lord carried the wood?

Your foot driven deep into the Hill Golgotha

shouts with cries rising, as with patience you stood.

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Was the air heavy laden with agony

of torture and torment, injustice and hate?

Your trials by Jew and Rome a mockery,

cruel crucifixion your preordained fate.

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Saw you the blood, sweat and tears dripping

from His face and those He held dear?

Venom and scorn unremitting

as Passover pilgrims stood watching in fear.

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Did you see the man Simon from Cyrene

step forward to help lighten His load?

Body and mind of our Beloved Nazarene

broken, as He walked to earth’s final abode.

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As He approached looked you into his eyes?

Saw you the depth of His love shining bright?

Eternal  flame against darkening skies,

guards pulling our Lord and His crossbeam upright.

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As brutal nails tore through flesh, bone and sinew,

screamed you silently as your own flesh did splinter?

As wounds reopened and blood flowed anew,

did your bruised bark feel the Saviour’s salve enter?

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Heard you the sobbing of the two Marys

as they stood to one side in your shadow?

Watching as drained our dear Lord’s energies,

His great gift to mankind about to bestow.

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Did you feel him draw his very last breath

as the veil in the Temple was ripped in two?

His voice calling out to the Father in death,

wood soaking His cries as they resonated through.

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As they flowed from His side, saw you water and blood

as the soldier of Rome sank home his sharp spear?

Felt you our Lord wash your feet in His flood,

at last this world’s agonies no longer to bear.

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Wept you quietly as His poor  broken body

was lifted with love from your gentle caress?

Did you watch the guards with their actions bawdy

callously cast lots to divide up His dress.

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Then as Joseph of Aramathea,

wrapped that dear body in purest of shrouds,

His Mother, Salome and Mary of Magdala,

anointed His form, well away from the crowds.

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Did you watch this Treasure placed into the tomb?

Smell the sweet-scented spices suffusing the air?

As Jesus, whom Mary nurtured in her womb,

was laid to rest…this our Lord’s final prayer.

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You must have felt like the cruel “Tree of Death”

watching this profound performance unfurl,

but know you carried the new Shibboleth,

divine living water and eternal heaven’s pearl.

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Shibboleth : from the Hebrew, meaning ” flood, stream, also ear of corn”. (www.etymonline.com ).

Also a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important.  An old idea, opinion, or saying that is commonly believed and repeated but that may be seen as old-fashioned or untrue.

Among historians there is disagreement as to the precise method of Jesus’s crucifixion.  They varied considerably with location and time period and there were many different forms of painful execution : from impaling on a stake to affixing to a tree, to an upright pole ( a crux simplex ) or to a combination of an upright (in Latin, stipes ) and a crossbeam (in Latin, patibulum).

I have written this personal post-Easter reflection as if a roughly hewn tree /stake is sitting atop Golgotha Hill and awaiting Jesus and the crossbeam he is tied to, to come to the place of execution, the top of the Hill, where the crossbeam will then be lifted into place and affixed to the waiting upright wood, with nails hammered home where necessary.

This has been for me a spiritually deep and profound contemplation on the Passion and Suffering of Yeshua ben Yosef or in English, Jesus,son of Joseph.