AP

(Luke 8.2; Mark 15.40; John 20.11; Gal.2.20)

Tell me who is he I see walking gently
like the dew before dawn in the garden,
while the fearless mockingbird sings its delights beneath the flickering stars and my past and present glides by.
Who is he the first and the last who came to become
the lowest earthling to dwell in angels’ shadow;
who redeems my faulty mind that wars continuously against me during the awful time, the closing of the day,
plucks me from the trap and answers the brooding horror of my guilty heart.

My God. let your pleasantness, your sweet aroma cover me; weave your seamless robe of fellowship,
the songs of my frail heart to soar and dance the heights of your magnificence and fly beyond the sun to your immortal frame.
Let in your intimate Spirit, your valuable dowry
that crowned Adam and Eve as your newlyweds
transform my beggarly frame; becoming my will and circumference, my blossoming, my sanctuary and honour
my infinite ruler; Christ the conquering King,
my joyous heaven, my treasure of  boundless measure that overcomes my boundless misery.

I have no fear, my brothers and daughters of Jerusalem,
to proclaim him whom my soul loves because he lives in me who has no fear and holds my future neatly sealed up.  
He is the essence of perfection, the Master craftsman,
the Holy splendour who from the depths of eternity looked into the eyes of his Father and desired to create
a world in which to feast and frolic with the sons of men and share his nature when we ought to be his enemies.

O the wonders of my Jesus, the Lamb who trampled down the brazen serpent and took the place of Adam’s hell and mine- this same Jesus who was slain for me 
possessed my days and planted my goings before the creation through the wandering maze of this world,
in the longest nights and darkest valleys by the delicate twins of love and knowledge (the lion and the dove) that cannot be broken; once divided by haughty Eve’s offence
testifying to the judgment which conscience knows,
now welded together without rivalry as a sacred tryst in Jesu’s heart.

I felt his wrestling within me for forty days.
The many masks I wore which hid his visage and reflection, my doubts that mocked and marred his inward form, were loosed and caught by his light.
I sensed my sorceries broken as a new birth began, remoulding in me the undefiled pure image which Adam lost (he actually recreates a Universe in me);
yet he offers not a mere antidote but completely heals by the spear which pierced his precious side; the Spirit who heals my wound now inscribes on my heart the yods and tittles of his grace and satisfies the Law’s demands; my strange lusts, my pains, my failed choices all dissolve upon his face in the instant of givenness, beyond the conversant moments of converging time.

I recognized the voice of him whose hands and feet were pierced like a lion call me by my name and saw a rose grow in the earth where his precious blood was shed.
He is the offspring of David, my risen Lord who died my darkness alone, disarming it to its uttermost shouting the battle cry for my deliverance; by his thirst he quenched my thirst gathering in the fruits of his harvest from the living stone and clear fountain.

I linger in the garden holding the broken stalk of a sunflower I found in the empty tomb at dawn
and notice a winged lad patiently waiting for me for the announcement.
As a gesture you will change me and I will be changed
and have my part in the tree of Life;
a royal priesthood that communes each infinitesimal moment secretly in the Holy Place beyond the curtain
where death’s sting is dead forever.

Come you Greeks and feast on the manna
for there is a greater than Socrates here.
O how difficult it is for your philosophies to strain through the narrow stumps of heaven!
Muse on the eternal glories of the Lamb whose streaming blood runs unbroken through the stream of death where the dreadful enemy sits, to heal and blot out the doomed captives’ eternal wounds and justify their destinies;
those embracing him, smeared by the blood of the firstborn by the power of the rustling wind on the lintels within their heart despite the great offence, so that the Angel of  death will pass them by, because there are no supplementary commandments to keep.