by Emily Smith

On the last day before He dies,

Jesus, abandoned by His friends, has no one left to empathize.

Three times it is his friendship with Christ that Peter denies,

And now it’s with a convicted heart that he looks his Master in the eyes.

Before He goes, Jesus prays for all who would believe,

And promises them joy even though they will grieve.

The weight of the Crucifixion Jesus fully perceives,

Yet upon His own will He does not insist and demands no reprieve.

Betrayed by Judas and arrested, He obeys and must go,

Even though Peter exclaims his own resounding no.

With a character unlike any other, one that is humble and low,

It it love even unto death that Jesus will show.

The Son now sits silently as He is hit with accusations,

“They say You’re the King of the Jews,” Pilate later mentions.

“Did others talk to you, or is that your own idea?” Jesus questions,

Giving Pilate a merciful chance to also have salvation.

Once sentenced to death, He doesn’t even give a cry,

Because it is on this Cross that His love for us will be exemplified.

Even as the crowd pressing in on Him shouts, “Crucify!”

His determination only grows to see our brokenness beautified.

Upon His head He bears a crown of thorns,

And bit by bit it is to the Father’s will that He conforms.

He never loses sight that it is for our sake that He is forlorn,

Knowing that now, for a relationship with the Father, we will never have to perform.

As Jesus reels from the pain of the whipping and flogging,

Pilate reveals it’s for the release of Barabbas that the crowd is longing.

Among those surrounding Him, Jesus has no belonging,

Even though it is upon His own head that their deserved wrath of God is pouring.

As Jesus is afflicted, scorned, and by God smitten,

Pilate proclaims, “What I have written, I have written.”

A note fastened upon the Cross reads the news,

“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

Now upon the tree, it is between two criminals He hangs,

God’s wrath not withheld as He experiences every pang.

The echoes of the crowd in His ears are still ringing,

But it is for the joy set before Him that His heart is still singing.

The darkness that, in three days, would flee at His command,

Started to swallow up every bit of that hallowed land.

“It is finished,” He spoke with His shallow final breath,

And with that, all of our sin died a brutal death.

From top to bottom the curtain splits in two,

And all of the tombs are broken open, too,

Shaking the earth the whole way through,

As the Son of God dies on behalf of me and you.

Now that the event is over and there’s nothing left to see,

Joseph takes the body of Jesus so finally at rest He can be.

He honors His broken body, placing Him in his family tomb,

Wrapping Him in linens and embalming Him with spices and perfume.

From His birth to His miracles to His death on the Cross,

Jesus would never look back and count any of it as loss.

For if you could only see the things that He sees—

A life of peace and joy for each of us, eternally.

For only a God that would look at the Cross and say that it’s worth it,

Could ever lavish on us a love that is so undeniably perfect.

Our Savior, our King, our God, and our Friend,

Has now won for us a life that has no end.