Jesus, Man of Sorrows,
Interceding for Your sheep
In Your ascended body, glorified,
At Your Father's side
With still-pierced hands
And feet and side,
And thorn-pricked brow,
The Lamb slain from before the world was,
And ever, until now:
Hear the cries of the brokenhearted saints.
Lord, You know
How many stumbled, tear-blind,
Into Resurrection worship
With Gethsemane hearts.
The losses and crosses of
These last 2 years (or 5, or 10)
Sit like granite yokes upon our shoulders—
The empty chairs around our tables,
The unseemly quiet of our homes on holidays,
The calls and visits we can't make,
Because "they" aren't here;
The homes lost to disaster and ruin,
The homes fled in desperation and fear;
The churches and families fractured by conflict;
The days guarding against disease and death,
The nights hiding from danger stalking at midnight;
The variegated trauma endured by myriad souls—
Lonely, oppressed, besieged, forgotten, abused.
Here the cries of deep rejection and dismissal
From the forgotten, fragile, invisible, some
Deeply wounded by messages unspoken actions speak.
Our presence matters to You, Lord.
You carry the heaviest end of our crosses.
When hearts and homes are empty, Jesus;
Come and fill the void with Yourself.
Make Your fellowship more real and precious
In our sufferings.
Make our shelters Your sanctuary.
Make our loneliness lovely with deeper intimacy with You.
Inspirit us to sing, "Blessed Be Your Name" in bomb shelters.
Enliven the Shepherd Psalm to us
In hospitals, prisons, trenches, sickbeds, bedsides.
All we have to offer is
Our weakness, tears, ashes,
But we offer them, Lord.
Bottle our tears;
Pour strength into our weakness,
The treasure of Yourself into our emptiness,
The wellspring of Your life into our thirst;
Beautify the ashes of our hopes.
Make them bloom with consolations from Your presence.
Call Your sad sheep by name today,
In that tone we know as surely as the weeper by Your tomb:
"Mary."
Joan.
Iryna.
Sylvia.
Emily.
Sam.
Aung.
James.
Paul.
They know Your voice.
Speak life and light into entombed,
Enshrouded, embattled hearts.
Kindle flame of resurrection hope
In Saturday souls.
Jesus, Man of Sorrows,
Come into our locked hiding places
And breath in us Your peace.
17 April 2022
