Who does not worry, fret and wonder,-
feel fear of suffering and death,
Not knowing what will hold the yonder,
when close is the last breath?

Then look to Jesus, Him alone
your faith to well sustain,
He suffered too, He too lay prone,
and tasted fear and pain!

Lo! Jesus went Himself through it,
as brother of humanity,
And met with what each man must meet,
- the shadows of uncertainty.

He did not glide and float through life,
exempt from pain and tears,
He knew dejection, grief and strife,
and anguish, dread and fear.

And like all men, He knew the freeze
that dulls the human heart,
When sweating blood upon His knees,
while sorrow pierced His heart.

He‘s fully on our side for He
passed through of all this too,
Took part in human agony,
and sorrow‘s tears He knew.

He was not speared, escaped no thing,
of mankind‘s common lot,
Identified with suffering,
and did evade it not.

He even did identify
with the most wretched lot,
The gallows bird that hangs on high,
and calls a silent God.

He suffered death, - a death the worst,
Jeered at and mocked in agony,
As outcast from His own, accursed
Upon the tree of infamy

In knowledge, like us,- limited,
- by choice restricted, He
Child of His time, beat, buffeted,
- but voluntarily.

Had he all known, no model rõle
the Savior could have been,
To draw, attract man‘s mind and soul,
and over hearts to win.

He only that identifies
with mankind’s common lot,
Can draw,- for hearts would turn to ice,
before a stolid God.

Unscathed He did not glide or sit,
but took on form of slave,
And stooped and washed disciples’ feet
to ransom and to save.

And limitations as have men,
the man of common clay,
According to Divine a plan
to Father on the way.

His life seemed sheer futility,-
disciples took to flight,
Writ off from books of history,
with comfort's balm denied,

And He that wandered ceaselessly
to cure to heal and bless,
Did suffer cruelest agony,
and died a shameful death.

He suffered death, - a death the worst,
Jeered at and mocked contemptuously,
As outcast from His own,- accursed
Upon the tree of infamy.

He took on every form of death,
and every agony,
Encompassing the final breath,
of all humanity.

But He transformed the destiny,
and all creation‘s sort,
In solidarity with man -
this Vulnerable Lord!


© Elizabeth Dandy