The Resurrection - Martha

I guess this is my tradition. My Easter poem. It took me a long time to write it this year and I'm not sure it's even that good, but it's stuff I've been thinking about embodied in a bible character.

The Resurrection - Martha

Three days gone

Before Jesus even came

And in those days all hope drained from me
while he prayed I wondered if I’d put my faith in the wrong place

Because He could have come sooner

he could have kept it from happening

I’d met him on the road shouting out in my despair

Where were you Jesus, if only you had been there

There was something about the glory of God

and promises for the future

But I didn’t care about it then because my brother was gone

And my whole future and life went with him, sealed inside that stone grave

Now Jesus stood there at the tomb and joined the weepers

Before he opened up his arms and prayed

And I wondered about my wavering faith,

put in the wrong things, lost in the wrong place.

Then the Lord called my brother from the grave

We were too busy being appalled to know how to rejoice

                We took off the grave clothes and watched him walk

And Jesus was there among us

Laughing at the sunlight, wiping tears from his eyes

And that was when I glimpsed that glory,

the Resurrection and the Life

Now it’s all changed in just moments, with news they’d taken Jesus away

And tonight I saw his body, lifted from the cross

Broken and breathless, bleeding still

and I don’t really know what I can do or say

and I’m afraid that the thing I once called faith

was just ambitious dreaming

He said he was the resurrection, but now he’s not here

To bring life or speak those words of hope

And I’m trying to remember what he said

Remember the moments, those pieces of heaven that came and touched earth when he was here

My brother, the rejoicing, the grave clothes on the ground

the palm branches and praises

The woman anointing his feet for his burial

I thought he’d meant something metaphorical

But I guess I was wrong again

And then the words that I’d spoken came back to me

If only you had been here.

Where are you now, Lord

When all of the rulers plot against us

When your friends ran away to hide

I believe in the resurrection, but you had me thinking I wouldn’t have to wait

You were going to be with the Father

And you left us behind to find our own way

So here I am again, worried and troubled about so many things

And though it’s dark

Though the hope you held in your very hands has faded from my heart

I still believe.

I believe you’re the resurrection

And I’m waiting through this time

Whoever believes in you will live even though he dies.