Good Friday Poem By Alan Allegra: Christ’s arrest, trial & suffering

Good Friday Poem: The Passion of Christ is the story of Jesus Christ’s arrest, trial and suffering. It ends with his execution by crucifixion. The Passion is an episode in a longer story and cannot be properly understood without the story of the Resurrection.

The word Passion comes from the Latin word for suffering.

The crucifixion of Jesus is accepted by many scholars as an actual historical event. It is recorded in the writings of Paul, the Gospels, Josephus, and the Roman historian Tacitus. Scholars differ about the historical accuracy of the details, the context and the meaning of the event.

Most versions of the Passion begin with the events in the Garden of Gethsemane. Some also include the Last Supper, while some writers begin the story as early as Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered Jerusalem to the applause of the crowds.

The Passion is a story about injustice, doubt, fear, pain and, ultimately, degrading death. It tells how God experienced these things in the same way as ordinary human beings.

The most iconic image of the Passion is the crucifix – Christ in his last agony on the cross – found in statues and paintings, in glass, stone and wooden images in churches, and in jewellery.

The Passion appears in many forms of art. It is set to music, used as a drama and is the subject of innumerable paintings.

Spiritually, the Passion is the perfect example of suffering, which is one of the pervasive themes of the Christian religion.

Suffering is not the only theme of the Passion, although some Christians believe that Christ’s suffering and the wounds that he suffered play a great part in redeeming humanity from sin.

Another theme is incarnation – the death of Jesus shows humanity that God had become truly human and that he was willing to undergo every human suffering, right up to the final agony of death. Another is obedience – despite initial, and very human, reluctance and fear, Jesus demonstrates his total acquiescence to God’s wishes.

But the final theme is victory – the victory of Christ over death – and this is why the Passion story is inseparable from the story of the Resurrection.

Good Friday Poem: Alan Allegra

“What makes Good Friday good?” you ask.
A challenge! A rather daunting task.
Some may dismiss it with a shrug and a smirk,
And consider it another day off work.

Others, religious, pious as such,
Take a few minutes for a mournful watch;
Merchants unlock their doors with glee,
Anticipating the pre-Easter shopping spree.

A bunny here, a chocolate egg there,
Symbols of a society that doesn’t care.
“Care?” you say, “Do you mean me?”
“What’s there to care; how can this be?”

It’s the cross, you forget, that rugged wood,
That makes Good Friday eternally good.
What’s so good about the death of an ancient man,
Who died long before my life began?

This man, who on this earth once trod,
Was not only man, but the Son of God.
That wood, that tree, that old rugged cross,
Was the symbol of gain and the symbol of loss.

To those who believe, it is the promise of gain;
The hope that, like Jesus, we’ll rise again!
For the skeptic, the doubter, the meaning is loss;
An eternal gulf, which no one can cross.

Good Friday is good, because of the death
Of Jesus the Savior, who gave His last breath
So you, friend, and I, could be cleared of our guilt,
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb that was spilt.

Mourn not, my dear soul, for the death of the Lamb,
For that cross made the bridge to the Great I AM.
Christ paid the price, rose again to God’s side,
And brought us next Sunday: the Resurrection-tide!

∼ Good Friday Poem By Alan Allegra