Poem for Easter

For You,

I turned water into wine, purified in the veins

of My own body. I climbed mountains, healed

crowds of hunger, warmed a leper’s skin. For

you I chastised leaders, halted stones, wrote on

the ground each word contained in Love.

I overturned unfair prices and low wages, tabled

discussions about who’s first or last, and enjoyed

the most unlikely company.

Before My execution, I tamed a donkey, became

your beast of burden, then bled from every pore.

Once for all, I buried death, and, when I arose,

some saw Me. Some heard Me as I broke through

the veil, cloaking time and eternity, and, yes,

for you, I’d do it all again.

Amen.

Mary Harwell Sayler from book A Gathering of Poems

Christ our Passover: the lasting sacrifice

Christ our Lasting Sacrifice
by Mary Harwell Sayler

I have come to do Your Will, O God
for the blood of animals cannot take away
sin forever.
Short-lived sacrifices, short-term offerings
do not cover sin forever,
and so You have prepared for Me
a Body
ready to be sacrificed –
the First to Last –
ready to do Your Will.

I have come to do Your Will, O God
as Holy Scriptures said I would
for You can no longer tolerate
temporary fixes:
interim sacrifices, itinerant offerings, burnt
offerings, sin offerings once accorded by Law.

You Will, O God, I have come to do to
fulfill the first way and establish the second
to sanctify All by offering
Myself –
the Body of Christ
arising – First and Last –
to do Your Will, O God.
I have come to do Your Will.



© Mary Harwell Sayler, all rights reserved; prayer-a-phrase poem from today’s Bible reading in Hebrews 10:4-10

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