In this Lectio Divina prayer form, a word or a phrase
tends to remain behind within each hearer,
like water from a common wave
caught in the distinctive shapes
of disperate shore-bound stones.

Sometimes an image develops in the mind's eye, while the words wash by;
like light flashing off small still pools of water
held by rocks planted at the oceans' edge.

Palm Sunday we heard the Passion read. Tonight we heard it again.
Tales told by different tongues, but the same basic story.
Waves of words washing over us, carrying emotions as deep as the sea.

I saw an image of Salvador Dali's painting of Saint John of the Cross,
modified by the words of psalm 22, and the Passion, twice read,
washing across my memory.

In my mind's eye I saw a horizontal cross suspended in a dark sky;
nothing visible but the cross, a body, and the empty air.
There was no ground to stand on - no stabilizing thing.

The cross was like a gangplank suspended over an abyss:
a wooden path stretched out over a dark and impenetrable sea of death and sin.

We shy from the surface of this sea;
We recoil from its depths. It is more than we can bear by ourselves.

Pirates with swords and cudgels place Jesus on the gangplank.
They may wear the leather of centurions
or the cloth of the high priest's men.
But their faces are the faces of all humanity.
They look like us.

We are like them.

How like human beings to attempt to appropriate that which belongs to God.
But we can neither control the kingdom nor wrestle treasures from the Father's hands.
It must be freely given.

So the Son allowed himself to be seized.

Though He could bid the wind and the waves "be still";
He chose to walk to the end of the plank.

They placed Him on the hard wood of the cross.
They pushed Him to the edge of human endurance.
But He, with divine intention, stepped beyond that edge,
To sink into the black water abyss
of an abandoned and shameful death.

We stand and watch from a safe distance.
While Jesus, stripped of any shred of power, pride or person-hood sinks into the sea.

He sinks weighted down by the cold iron of bonds that are rightfully ours
He embraces the unbearable weight of our collected sins
and plunges like a stone into cold darkness.

Christ goes where we were unwilling to go, yet unable, by ourselves, to escape,
And the water closes over Him.

We stand gazing at the water He has pierced,
But He is gone.

How can we redeem the darkness that is coiled around our hearts?

We cannot.

So we will turn our backs, and retreat into the night.

"O my God I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer;
by night as well, but I find no rest"

The plank is empty.
The sea is as still as death.
It is finished.