when it’s all said and done here.
look me up.
I’ll be kicking back, slinging jawbones
with samson
who made it in the door by the grace of God
same as noah
found grace
discovered it

(he happened upon it or rather it happened upon him)

i’ll be listening to stories of limping jacob and stumbling bartimaeus
I’ll be all ears– smiling and wondering about weak eyes, pharisees and romance
discussing it with the miracle boy of Jesus’ mud pies

look! there’s Paul (no longer writing with big letters–the lasik surgery is divine)
he’s catching up on his reading
checking out the far flung analysis of lettered theologians
from barclay to barnes to hal lindsay (just for fun)
I will not dare disturb him.

and Jesus is smiling
His kids–the whole crew is back home
all of them
He’s feasting on the vision He’s been waiting to see

me?
i’m the guy way over in the back of the family portrait
next to a man named bart wrinkle (of whom i have not met)

There was another perspective of the crucifixion. It was hidden from the gaze of those on Earth. The great cloud of witnesses watched from Heaven as Jesus exhaled one last time before mourners and murders. Millions of souls, from centuries past, witnessed in amazement the unthinkable death of Jesus. They watched His stillness from beyond the veil, perhaps in wonder. It seemed less like a death and more like a realization. Suddenly they understood their story.

David understood why giants fell and kings collided into their own destiny.

Abraham understood the incomprehensible test of Mount Moriah.

Jonah experienced epiphanies of his three days in the belly of the fish.

The three Hebrews who spent time in a furnace, recognized the Visitor again. This time on the cross…

Solomon understood the reality of a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

And Isaiah surely wept as he saw the Man who bore our griefs and was bruised for the iniquities of us all. 

They watched. All of them watched–the angels, demons and mortals, the judges and criminals– the wretched mass of man’s worst epics, the ravished ones of the innocent garden. Betrayers and hypocrites understood this story and their role in the middle of this divine denouement. The broken and beaten wept in the midst of their personal revelation. The rabble of messy humanity watched as the last drop fell.

And we too, like the men on the road to Emmaus who walked and dined with the resurrected Jesus, experience revelation. It’s a moment of epiphany.

We say to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)

The cross makes sense of our struggle. It endows us with meaning and hope. Some will never accept the truth of Jesus and His mercy until they stand before Him. I wouldn’t want to live a day without it.