Sunday Sabbath Poetry: Kevin Hart for Easter Sunday

Friends: The Lord is risen.

He came, he walked with us, he suffered with us, he broke bread with us. He did not fight: he was mocked, beaten, and executed. He died. Like all men, he was buried.

But today, he lives again. The grave is empty, for all time.

What was dead with his body in the tomb, stays dead forever: all sins, all failures, all mistakes; all fear, all pain, all darkness; all tears, all disease, all death. They are dead, once and for all, where his body once lay.

But he is alive, in the city of God, and he reigns forevermore.

Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!

Hallelujah to the King of Kings, and hosanna in the highest!

He is risen!

- - - - - - -

Jerusalem

By Kevin Hart

This is where the deserts end.
This is the city where the dead still live.
Here, at evening,
The sun and moon are both still full,
And when you arrive
The road can take you nowhere else.
Enter this inn
And see its empty table, its dead fire,
This window where
Those distant mountains stare into the past.

Remember
That woman with a broken jar,
That young man
Feeding swine in the sad desert twilight.

They say that silence leads us here,
That we are led
As if by hand, wind running fingers through the dust;
Inside, the silence
Will take you by the hand.
Here you bow to enter doors;
Here, a man once came
As one of us
To speak of all that we are not.

Now feel this stillness
Where two opposing forces clasp: this is the room
Where bread is broken
To make us whole, the inn of our desire.