“And he [Jesus] answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” Luke 19:40
I am a cave, of sorts –
A hollow hill, more like.
I am a tomb
Where the living come to bury their dead.
Weeping, they arrive
And shove the body into my velvety depths.
They seal up my entrance
And hurry away
To escape the guilt they feel
For the wrongs they have done
This dead one while he lived.
But I am no ordinary tomb
For I once housed the body
Of the one, begotten Son of the Living God.
Because of man’s inhumanity,
Injustice and pride,
I profited in this:
I was honored by a Presence
Sweeter, even in death,
Than the fragrance of roses.
I shall forever cherish the memory
Of those few hours.
We all knew it –
The flowers, the trees, the grasses,
The mountains, the seas, the skies.
All of us except humankind
Knew He was God —
This man who called Himself, “Jesus.”
For we do not blind ourselves with greed;
We are content merely to be here
And glorify our Creator.
That is why we could see the legions of angels
Who protected and worshiped gentle Jesus.
And on that dark day
When the angels’ tears fell like rain from Heaven
To cool His tormented body,
We knew that He had died.
All of Nature wept,
With all of Heaven,
To know that men,
Dearly beloved of God,
Could be so tragically brutal.
And at that time, I did not know
That my owner had requested His body.
His friends brought Him, as others do –
Weeping.
But I knew it was He coming
By the rustle of angel wings
And the deep Presence of God Himself.
And when they turned up my path,
I began to tremble to my very foundations
With unutterable joy.
Before they were even near
I yearned to embrace Him
And soothe His tortured body.
Like a miracle, they left Him with me
And I sobbed in rapture
To receive the blessing of His care.
With great effort, I controlled my trembling;
Then I kissed away His fever
With my cool darkness,
And tenderly sang psalms of love to Him.
Angels hovered about me,
Whispering and weeping with deep sorrow,
While the Spirit of God
Brooded restlessly over the face of the Earth.
I would not have liked to be human
During those dark hours,
For God’s wrath simmered,
And His heart was crushed with anguish.
But His hand was stayed by these words:
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
And, once again, all of Heaven and all of Nature wept
To see our Creator’s sorrow
And share His deep pain,
Inflicted by men
To whom He had given so much.
The rest of the story is history
Although some people, ever-blind,
Still refuse to see Jesus.
In the following years,
Others have come to me,
Borne by weeping relatives.
Wrapped and scented,
They were sealed, just as Jesus was.
But no one else has done what Jesus did
When He rose up in glory, never to die again,
And walked out, amid the song of angels, into His Father’s waiting arms.
Photo credit: jeffjacobs1990 on pixabay
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