An Easter Song …

This song took shape in recent days as I saw myself in the crucifixion story as one of the soldiers, working for the Roman Empire on the day of the crucifixion … I haven’t had time to record the music, so here are the lyrics, in hopes they’ll add to your meditation and celebration of Easter. Happy Easter, everyone!

Metal barbs on leather strips – we whip him with that thing,
Interrogating whether he really is a king.
We weave a crown of thorns and beat them down upon his head.
When someone speaks the painful truth we’d rather see him dead.
We spit on him and strip him and cast lots for his clothes.
We nail him upon a cross, naked and exposed.
But maybe he has turned the tables. Maybe it is we
Who are exposed for who we are in violent cruelty.
Where is God in all of this? Where upon this stage?
Is God with the torturers, venting holy rage?
Or is God with the tortured one, gasping for a breath?
Is God man-forsaken in the one condemned to death?
What is he now saying? What’s he trying to do?
“Father please forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
No vow to get revenge on us, no promise to repay …
If he is a king, he surely rules a different way.
I worked for the empire of Caesar ‘til today.
But all my faith in wealth and power and violence drains away.
I have had a change of heart. I’ll put away the sword.
I will walk a different path and serve a different Lord.
… My former life has died with him, and now I am restored.
I am resurrected to follow Christ the Lord.