Once and For All

PAD Challenge 15:For today’s prompt, write a “one time” poem. 

And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
John 17:5

What horror bid Thee languish

Thou, Lamb of Calvary

That drew death’s goal from anguish

To glorious victory

What grace flowed from Thy sorrow

Perfection crucified

Once and for all; my Lord, oh

To break sin’s curse, You died

What splendor in submission

What tender agony

What mercy-bowed contrition

Didst plea for you and me

But rock could not contain Him

Nor locks restrain Hope’s Bloom

As ages still proclaim Him

The Victor of the Tomb

Once and for all, my Lord, oh

Man’s awful debt You bore

To save our souls from hell, oh

In death’s Forevermore

Once and for all; ah, Jesus

You took on form of man

Thou, who knew You would free us

Before the world began

© Janet Martin

 

Good Friday

Earth trembled. Rocks split.

Darkness draped sky and sod,

The veil in the temple

Rent by Holy God

Crowds jeered yet feared

What they had done

…nailed to the cross

God’s Only Son

Love groaned, atoned

Sin’s debt with blood

Once and for all

Redemption’s flood

…ran full and free

As His last breath

Sealed Victory

-Life beyond death

For never before,

Since Time began

Was love outpoured

As it was then

Beneath it earth trembled

Rocks split as God’s Son

Completed His mission

With ‘it is done’

© Janet Martin

Why Good Friday, someone asked as we reflected *on what took place that day, and my son replied that he heard the reason it is called Good Friday is because never before was mankind loved like it was then...

*John 19

 Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.

² And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe,
³ And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands.
⁴ Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.
⁵ Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!
⁶ When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.
⁷ The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.
⁸ When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid;
⁹ And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.
¹⁰ Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?
¹¹ Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.
¹² And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.
¹³ When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.
¹⁴ And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
¹⁵ But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
¹⁶ Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.
¹⁷ And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:
¹⁸ Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.
¹⁹ And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was Jesus Of Nazareth The King Of The Jews.
²⁰ This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.
²¹ Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews.
²² Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.
²³ Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.
²⁴ They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.
²⁵ Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
²⁶ When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!
²⁷ Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.
²⁸ After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
²⁹ Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth.
³⁰ When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
³¹ The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
³² Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him.
³³ But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:
³⁴ But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.
³⁵ And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.
³⁶ For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.
³⁷ And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.
³⁸ And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.
³⁹ And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.
⁴⁰ Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
⁴¹ Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.
⁴² There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.

More Easter Poems Here 
and here and here

Without Easter

He is not here but is risen. Luke 24:6

Without Easter’s true meaning

How could hope’s well-spring surge

And without heaven’s Offering

What then could our guilt purge?

Without Love’s ‘it is finished’

How could we ever sing?

No joy could yield full measure nor

Hope’s hallelujahs ring

Without Death’s resurrection

Salvation would be dead

And every bloom a gloomy thorn

Pressed hard upon the head

Without Easter, then Christmas

Would be a vain affair

Without Easter eternity

Would be too long to bear

Without Easter, our passage

Through life’s struggle and pain

Would be a hellish foretaste

Of all that yet remains

Without Easter, a promise

Would be hollow, and Hope

A mystery; without Easter

Tell me, how could we cope?

© Janet Martin

What is hope? The world cries. What is another word for hope? There is only one word for hope; Jesus. Why Jesus? Because of what we call Easter.

Easter Poem Meditation...tweaked repost

He could have sent a prophet
A servant, meek and low
To bear the sword of evil
And hatred's cruel blow
He could have sent a king of earth
A pauper or a priest
He had the pow'r to place His worth
Within a mindless beast
He could have sent His angels
Legions to fill the sky
To spare Himself the anguish
Of watching His Son die
He could have, with one uttered word
Declared all man forgiven

 Or from His supreme visage stirred
The rocks to shout salvation
But no, He chose to put on flesh
The Sacred Son of Heaven
Became a servant unto men
In form, lowly and human
Upon a cross He gave Himself
A King and Royal Priest
And not one drop of love withheld
As death’s curse was released
He could have sent an army
To face the fiends of hell
But He loved us so completely
That He sent Himself

Janet

 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.…Phil.2:6-8

God Sent His Son...

   

Broken, pleading, hope lay bleeding

On earth’s battleground, undone

Who can heal man's utter needing?

Only One; God sent His Son

Mortal treasure could not measure

To absolve our guilty groan

Blood of ram inept tradition

Until this; God sent His Son

Law condemns sinful behavior

We are sinful; everyone

Is there for our doom a Savior?

Who, my Lord? God sent His Son

Hate and hunger lunged to slaughter

Goodness, Mercy, Love undone

From the cross pours Living Water

To redeem; God sent His Son

Broken, bleeding, Jesus pleading

Father, forgive what they’ve done

For they do not know; I’m leading

Them to You; God sent his Son

© Janet Martin

 When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. But Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves. And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, "He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One."…Luke 23: 33-35

Come, Dear Child and Let Me Tell You

 Part I

Come, dear child and let me tell you

As we stroll across the day

About One who made the morning

And the night that fades away

How He spoke into the blackness

Commanding, ‘let there be Light’

And how Time from that day forward

Became morning, noon and night

Come, dear child, the whole world surges

With the beauty God has made

See the dappled sun and shadow

Where the willow spreads its shade

See the grass, the tree, the song-bird

As it flits from limb to limb

Butterfly and lovely flower

All designed and shaped by Him

See the fish that fill the ocean

And the puddles after rain

Cow and sheep out in the meadow

Sweeping fields of corn and grain

Come dear, child and look around you

Every stem that sprouts from sod

Is a glimpse of the Creator

For it is the work of God

Part II

Come dear child and let me show you

The most wondrous thing of all

See this picture of a cross

Covered in red where blood-drops fall

See the One who hangs there dying

Nails pierced though precious Jesus

High above the earth His crying

Pleads that God would forgive us

Jesus loves the little children

And He longs for you to know

How He made the earth and heavens

Oh, so very long ago

And the One who made the flowers

Every bird and every tree

Is the God whose own Son, Jesus

Died for us on Calvary

Come dear child and let me tell you

As we stroll across the day

How the precious blood of Jesus

Washes all our guilt away

Yes, He made winter and summer

Everything in spring and fall

But dear child, then God made people

And He loves us best of all

© Janet Martin

What Did You Come to See?

What did you come to see?

A reed tossed in the wind?

A man in fine array?

A voice of one crying?

What did you come to see?

The horror of blood shed?

A corpse of suffering

With thorns upon His head?

What did you come to see?

A cross? A king? A thief?

Or did you come to see a Lamb

Bearing atonement's grief?

Why did you come to gaze

At heaven’s mercy-seat?

Was it your hatred or your love

That drew you to His feet?

What did you come to see

As He cried, ‘it is done’?

A man upon a tree

Or Jesus, God’s own Son?

© Janet Martin