History's Greatest Miracle Play

History’s Greatest Miracle Play Let me tell you a story - Prologue Actors gather to play their parts To set the stage – backdrops and props – In history’s greatest miracle play Called to speak their lines On redemption’s stage In a holy script of seven days Written before the first bright beam of time Before light took its first breath Coming center stage Emerging from creation’s gauzy scrim. Act One – Scene One Hosannas echo in the temple courts The King of David’s line returns In Anna’s prophecy in Simeon’s words Riding on a donkey with a coat of white Palms laid up a stony road – What is the trembling at the earth’s core - Hosannas sound like earthquakes Like curses waved instead of palms Heaven prepares to welcome home its Prince Scene Two Echoes reverberate from the blacksmith’s forge Sparks, like biting fireflies, shower a stable Where a white donkey dreams in visions Of the King who rode upon his back to waving palms The anvil sound pounds within these dreams Fiery iron cloned and shaped into flesh piercing nails Ordered by invasion on this crossroads of spice; Does the smithy know his craftsmanship Will hold God and man fast upon two beams of brutality - The Master that he follows? Scene Three Quiet the air setting the scene – an upper room - Heavy in expectancy and waiting – anticipation not exhaling - The fragrance of bitter herbs and roasting lamb in holy spices Fills each corner like the hushed conversation That prepares a table remembering the night When death passed over doorways anointed with the blood of lambs But waits to play its part crossing over midnight Hovering! Watching as the Master washes feet – a new command – Then eat new covenant bread, blessed and broken, To sip from the new blessings cup of salvation Until the living Elijah cup returns in glory. Act Two Scene One Spin doctors of the law Twisting words to fit their fiction Throwing back into the face of the Word Truth re-arranged in tangled hypocrisy Cunning duplicity in contorted quotes hurled at purity Treachery stalks in ideology -falsehood masquerades as rightness The hands of mockery strike at redemption Rend their robes in hissing shows of self-righteous drama And yet this deceit too forgiven from a cross For they know not what they do on salvation’s stage. Scene Two The temple shudders in nightmares of prophecy The firm cornerstone rejected Foundation liquefies returning sandstone back to shifting sands Trembling before the anointed redemption The temple curtain lays in shreds Revealing a clear path to Holy Holy God Still hearing in memoir the newborn Emmanuel’s cry And in cries from the cross – “It is finished.” Forgiveness cloak revealed – Eden found again on a Friday God’s finger reaches down again to touch the heart And it is good! Scene Three Upon a winding road - a narrow way A crowd gathers on stony streets of grey To watch a man pass by condemned to die this day On the way of tears For they come to jeer the man who healed the lame To watch him suffering who healed them of their pain They come to ask him if his God will save him now From stones and traps that trip him As he carries the sins of mortal history On the way of tears. Scene Four Your sandaled footsteps hurry down this Roman road They carry you - walk on actor in cameo role written by a plan - Into a frenzy stirred up by seething ancient evil - Cast down into fiery fate – bursting from the wings released Your footsteps echo on this crowded market weeping road As a destiny beckons your feet and clothes your footsteps Bringing you face to face with anointed agony To clear a path on rough stones with your conscripted steps And carry a burden, not your own, with strong shoulders of compassion To look into your Savior’s eyes. Scene Five Purple boughs shelter sparrows In wilderness temple courts And bleed in aromatic myrrh when pierced Like wounded hands nailed to a cross Remembers sweet perfumed gifts given Beneath the whisper of one bright guiding star And waits again to anoint the broken body of the Word, Sinless Lamb who refused its gift of pain relief, Arms stretched out between pure Heaven’s face And haunted earth. Scene Six Born from bits of primeval mud Pressed down by the weight of century’s hand; Round. Rolling. Ponderous as shame. Carved from a numb granite face Sightless, mute barrier, between scurrying life and immobile death No watch fires warm your stone heart As tears of dust fall from your visage without feeling Until you too shout “Alleluia!” “Amen!” Rolled away by living grace to reveal your empty tomb! Act Three Scene One Grace, the matrix of the morning, Wraps fingers round the sunrise Of rosy pink, purple mauve, Triumphant yellow and fiery orange Waking history’s garden to bloom again Born from seeds of the plaintive heart Nascent in new light reborn from exile No longer wandering blind In wastelands of shadows and mourning New life rises with the first light! Scene Two Agony’s tears plants the seeds In Alleluia’s victory garden! Triumph’s bower of the Paschal Lamb Leaps in Hosanna’s jubilation With Hallelujah’s lyric laurels Sheaves of Eden’s weeds discarded Blown away by fanfare trumpets like tattered chaff Tortured Passion’s flowers stained crimson Sow Maranatha Within Amen’s sacred spice. Epilogue Wondering moonlight enters the empty tomb Light, redeemed by the Light of Lights on the finale’s stage, Passes over the Kidron Valley Where discarded pagan altars and impotent sacred poles Descend into their eternal crypts when the footsteps of the Word Renders their light more mute than eclipsed moonbeams; The full moon of spring forever exalts in perennial return Arching between Eden and exile – Egypt and Resurrection As the soul, frozen in winter, rolls into redemption And celebrates a moonlit dance in the empty tomb. 4-26-22 Contest: Narrative Sponsor: Constance La France Theme: Life Contest: Easter Poetry Sponsor: Regina McIntosh