AP

Simon Peter, after the crucifixion

As my mind surveys my Master’s anointed head, His bruised heel,

His struggle to give His life for mine, to drink the bitter cup, to tread on death for my sake.

From midnight to the cockcrow a strange light around me shines, a dream draws near,

sitting beside the waves of Galilee, I look back and think of all that might have been –

When fenced inside Eden, if Eve had not plucked, and handed on, the fruit of knowledge.

Why was she not pleased I wonder, why was she not content, with God’s beauty and His bounty?

O Lord Jesus whose love measures all of my life’s events in their long pre-history, why are You with me still, in spite of all, You hold me while I sink, You bring me through year after year full of unending grace, in all this world’s unkindness?

Out of the depths, sin will have great pain, how can this be the will of God?  

To what purpose is all this sorrow, this is also a gift, God answers prayer –

Therefore I must trust in God’s silence when He does not speak.

Yawheh pours His great fury, afflicts His Son and builds His temple with its chambers for the singers, its windows all around, the table of shewbread by the side of the gate and the altar where they lay the instruments with which they slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice.

Only His blood could pay the price for all the world’s sinfulness.

A change has come, the veil splits. All is finished. Christ, through the eternal Spirit offers Himself willing with the perfect will, without spot to God, line graven upon line and stroke on stroke, a sweet aroma pleasing to the Lord.

To be a servant, within the inner court is to be inside God’s mind, to enter a kingdom which reaches all the way down to the tree of life, its cross beams joining, the Holy Spirit ever witnessing in my soul to Christ.

To sit like Ruth under the shelter of His wings, while the reapers go forward waiting until the morning for the voice of their bridegroom who shall sweep away all death and anguish.

– Nicos Kaloyirou