EASTER THOUGHTS - © John Denney April 2004
By the roadside, an olive fell.
A seedling sprouted.
The parent tree,
Down.
Dead.
Sawn.
Hewn to hold hay.
Made for a stable
Shaped to hold…..
The young tree grew, roots firm, canopy spreading.
Year by year, watered and fed, toiling not.
Shading.
Breathing.
Giving
fruit.
Thirty-three winters. Thirty-three
summers.
Down.
Dead.
Sawn.
Carried through Jerusalem’s streets by a Jew, a Cyrenian.
The pieces reunited.
Cross-purposed.
Following
the shepherd, old pasture to new.
Trusting
him, hearing his call.
Winter
over, shorn.
Still
following.
Wood
carded and spun and washed and woven.
No need to
dye a shroud.
Die.
A
shroud.
The Word formed the land, created the rock.
Hammer and chisel shaped the stone.
Human hands sweated to heave the rock in place.
Closing the tomb.
Sealing living from dead, light from darkness,
Hope from despair.
The Word
silenced.
Sabbath passed.
Beyond the sight of sentry, past the grasp of human mind,
Angel hand rolled back the stone.
Angel voice announced good news.
“He is risen!” came the cry
And down the ages still we hear
The sound of hammer and of nail,
The bleat of sheep and snipping clippers,
The grate of rolling rock, the cry:
“He is risen!” “He is
risen!” “He is risen indeed!