Friday, April 3, 2015

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.
And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe,
And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands.
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.
Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!
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.
The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.
When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid;
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

No Boast Have I But One...



No boast have I but One
Oh may it ever be
In nothing but Jesus, God’s Son
Who died to set us free
No boast have I but this
Not of the works I’ve done
Have I obtained His righteousness
But through Jesus, God’s Son
No boast have I to tell
But one in One alone
He saves us from the curse of hell
And reigns on Heaven’s throne
No boast have I and yet
My boast each day I live
Is Jesus Christ, God’s only Son
Who died so we may live
© Janet Martin

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Gal.6:14

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Of Rain-flavored Memories...



'It’s such a nice day', raved Victoria, when she came home from school,
while the gray wind drew zig-zags, then circles in the puddles…

It’s a nice, nice day
Somber sky, pewter gray
Tug and pull wind-
Rain soliloquy

It’s a home-sweet-home tune
Clink of tea-cup and spoon
Of rain-circle banter
On mid-afternoon

Piano dum-de-doo
And my, I love you
It’s sock-feet and laughter
And biscuits and stew

It’s a nice, nice day
Almost perfect, I’d say
April-rain rhapsody
Drip-dripping away


© Janet Martin

Kindly, Because We All Matter




 PAD Challenge day 2: write a secret poem...

Sometimes we forget
Like a secret well-kept
In a jar we dare not shatter
That, whether rich or poor
All we’re looking for
Is to be treated like we matter

So then, in the rush
Of tug and push
And coming-going clatter
We should endeavor
To treat each other
Kindly, because we all matter

© Janet Martin

Secret Keepers

PAD Challenge Day 2: For today’s prompt, write a secret poem.

Paint Tins;
they don't say much
just sit there waiting
for tint and brush
and a world of creating


Vegetables;
quiet creatures, they are
and quite ordinary-looking
waiting to be supper-stars
with blending, baking, cooking

Seeds;

the face of a seed does not draw
exclamation
but oh, not so after we plant and wait...
for God's creation


Pen; 


he only tells what we permit
and spells what we allow
and what remains the rest of it
no one will ever know

This is a lovely day to discover
and uncover
what might otherwise remain
a secret

Happy April 2nd!

Janet~









Wednesday, April 1, 2015

No Time to Resist...



 PAD Challenge Day one: write a resistance poem

Time extends its invitation
Rising from yon beaming brink
Renewal and expectation
Dawn Hand-painted, gold and pink

Who will dare resist its offer?
This, the day the Lord has made
Spills to earth from heaven’s coffer
Melting midnight’s palisade

We were born for this, my darling
Let the Past its vastness prey
See, the sky is full of morning
Come, before it fades away

On the harpsichord of ages
Moment-melodies untwist
Time is eager to turn pages
We have no time to resist

© Janet Martin

Wretched Man That I Am

It's back! The PAD challenge. Just when it feels like we're tired of writing with one tire stuck in the mud along comes November and April with poem-a-day prompts

 PAD Challenge day one prompt, write a resistance poem.
 
James 4:5-10



Just because we ignore a fact
Does not mean it doesn’t exist
The inner man under constant attack
By flesh seemingly born resist
The good we know we should do, but oh
The bad we should not, that we do
And often we cry with him too
Because flesh is prone to resist the One
That helps us resist the foe
Yet hope abides through Jesus, God’s Son
It is by His grace we go

© Janet Martin

For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. Gal.5:17

 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7



For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.…
I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Rom.7:18-25