Death of Jesus

He prays, but He hears prayer. He weeps, but He causes tears to cease. He asks where Lazarus was laid, for He was man; but He raises Lazarus, for He was God. He is sold, and very cheaply, for it is only for thirty pieces of silver; but He redeems the world, and that at a great price, for the price was His own blood. As a sheep He is led to the slaughter, but He is the Shepherd of Israel, and now of the whole world also. As a lamb He is silent, yet He is the Word, and is proclaimed by the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He is bruised and wounded, but He heals every disease and every infirmity. He is lifted up and nailed to the tree, but by the tree of life He restores us; indeed, He saves even the robber crucified with Him; indeed, He wrapped the visible world in darkness. He is given vinegar to drink mingled with gall. Who? He who turned the water into wine, who is the destroyer of the bitter taste, who is sweetness and altogether desire. He lays down His life, but He has power to take it again; and the veil is torn, for the mysterious doors of heaven are opened; the rocks are split, the dead arise. He dies, but He gives life, and by His death destroys death. He is buried, but He rises again; He goes down into hell, but He brings up the souls; He ascends to heaven, and will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Before the first star was kindled, before the first living creature began to sing the praise of its Creator, he loved his Church with an everlasting love. He spied her in the glass of predestination, pictured her by his divine foreknowledge, and loved her with all his heart; and it was for this cause that he left his Father, and became one with her, that he might redeem her. It was for this cause that he went with her through all this vale of tears, discharged her debts, and bore her sins in his own body on the tree. For her sake he slept in the tomb, and with the same love that brought him down he has gone up again, and with the same heart beating true to the same blessed betrothment he has gone into the glory, waiting for the marriage day when he shall come again, to receive his perfected spouse, who shall have made herself ready by his grace. Never for a moment, whether as God over all, blessed forever, or as God and man in one divine person, or as dead and buried, or as risen and ascended, never has he changed in the love he bears to his chosen.

’Twas many a year ago,

I yet remember it,

That I was hewn down

At the wood’s end.

Then men bare me upon their shoulders

Until they set me down upon a hill.

Then saw I tremble

The whole extent of earth.

He mounted me;

I trembled when He embraced me;

Yet dared I not to bow earthwards.

I raised the powerful King

The Lord of the Heavens.

They pierced me with dark nails.

They reviled us both together.

I was all stained with Blood,

Poured from His Side.

The shadow went forth

Pale under the welkin.

All creation wept,

They mourned the fall of their King.