by Hannah Castro

Darkness settled over the earth, at least in our hearts,
as we watched the One who truly taught us to love, to forgive, to bear the thorn that imparts
such beauty was brutally stolen from our midst.
For out of an act of unfaithfulness, one of His own betrayed Him with a kiss
that led to such darkness, where just the evening before was an outpouring of light—
Communion of His Body and His Blood and humility, washing others’ feet in spite
of the series of events that He knew would come.

Such suffering, accusal, persecution that truly could only be from
the fears of the enemy—to place Him on such a Cross,
with a crown of thorns, deep wounds, pierced side—it brought upon us such deep, powerful loss;
and there we were, in such darkness, watching our King bear our shame
all for the Father’s glory, which we didn’t yet understand in our broken pain.

As we beheld the scene of our hearts being bound in the tomb.
Placed inside, a gentle reminder of His humble arrival in His mother’s womb.
As it was in His birth that we first felt a shift in our everything, 
His arrival became our first true glimpse of worshiping—
and His death became our first true glimpse of darkening.

But we waited and watched and lifted our heads,
for we knew what He promised, and His truth held together the threads
of our hope—the true reason we stayed.
The Resurrection we could never have predicted, even as we were confronted by the tomb’s lack of barricade.

For at first, we remained heartbroken as the stone was rolled away,
then as immediately as we could, we lifted our hands to worship and pray
because we saw You in the flesh, a true gift of dwelling, 
that we couldn’t have even understood though it was Your foretelling.
And we had to tell everyone we knew that You, Lord Jesus, had completed
the ultimate act of glory—death was defeated.