Gethsemane: The Healing

One of a small number of poems for Holy Week

Gethsemane: The Healing
The utter silence of the Universe
Is settled here, upon these hills
Where Jesus prays,
And we, unheeding, sleep.

E’en as he bids that sleep go on,
a murmur breaks from down below,
Which rises to a din
Of tainted oaths and strident steel
As anxious men
Come forth with Judas at their head.
Led by his familiarity, temptation
And our sin,
He stoops and in the jagged lantern light
Looks as one dead;
Yet gives the God of all
That fatal kiss
Which sets the seal
Of that most unjust night.

Upon the instant, tumult breaks,
Hands belabour Christ
And heave him off the ground
Then force him to his knees.
Profanities burst forth
in several tongues.
Terror and confusion,
Twin kith of Satan, reign:
Yet Christ shakes free.

Silence shamefully descends
And in a clear and fearless tone
The captive asks
“Whom seek ye”

“Jesus, Nazarene”, they cry.
Sullied epithets abound.
“I am he” he quietly says
and then from all around
shouts and renewed confusion abound.
Peter, blind with rage and fear
Grapples for a sword,
Lunges out to kill
But strikes a glancing blow
Which severs Malchus’ ear.
Christ hears the scream of pain,
Then turning, for a moment free again
touches him
And instantly, the ear regrows.

This poem has a 'sequel' in O Dare I Gaze Upon The Cross

To find other poems, meditations and hymns for LENT, HOLY WEEK and EASTER, Click Here