4.26.2011

Peter's Plea: A Good Friday Poem

I return here desperate to leave my own shame.
Alone, there is no one left to blame.
I am sitting in the slime that surrounds only my own name.

In this spot, my distraught heart will stand.
Where swords were once drawn at hand
And lowered at one weakened man’s command.

There was one who stood to give a deadly kiss.
Another, an ear he should have made to miss.
And their lives now suddenly thrown into fear’s abyss.

Choked with fear of the unknown
But a single man’s love not yet shown
And a God who needed to return to His throne.

A man pleas for forgiveness.
He’s not the only one.

Three times I spoke those fatal words
Of a denial I pray he never heard.
Then three nails that pierced his skin
To free my life from the chains of sin.

Now I live in constant despair
Because of the three words I let loose in the air.
Scars that burn in the dead of night
But only when the sun rises they might

Reveal the burn within.
He sat in the garden alone.

I tried not to succumb to sleep
But exhaustion digs down deep.
A lamb being led to the slaughter
That one might save a son or daughter.

A God remaining in the in the heavens above
Trying to show unadulterated love,
It pleased him to crush his own son.
And he was satisfied when it was done.

This sacrifice unlike any I have seen;
Unearthly, indescribable, a mystery.
He dug me up out of the pit of hell,
And gave me the stories to tell.

Instead of removing my own shame
I gave thanks with bitterness, anger, and blame.
For it was the only thing I chose to let remain.

I was too afraid to stand naked in the garden,
Unable to receive any form of pardon.
I hoped that the paper leaves would cover the hardened
Human that I have become.
Lord what is it that I have done.
And the crow cries, three…two…one.

And we sit alone in an empty garden.
Peter and I.
One in the same.
Betrayer. Denier. Afraid.

It is here I plea
For grace and mercy.
From the only man who could stay up on a cross
So all would not be lost.

And when we leave the place
From which we tried to hide our face,

We were not the only ones. 

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