the void of the cross ..

" were you there when they crucified my Lord ? " goes the old american slave hymn

but noone was there really ..

some were there
but they weren't really ..

certainly not those that cried-out " crucify him ! "
or those that religiously followed orders and nailed him to the tree
or those that mocked him in his defeat
not Herod
not Caiaphas
not Pilate

some were there because they loved him
but they weren't really there either, and his graciousness to them in their even-then veiled understanding of who he was and what was going on, even after knowing him, is all the more wonderful

..

noone was there really ..

where he was was utter darkness
bare naked destitute
deprived of any sense of integrity decency or morality
hanging in painful display for all the world to gawk
in his shame
rejected
abandoned

adrift in the nothingness of cosmic darkness ..

even the angels must have lowered their wings as they walked away
especially after God had shuttered the windows to the throne room
   shutting out the light
   curtaining the tears that flowed there ..

..

dark impenetrable void
vacuumed of all sound
senses numbed by the sheer emptiness of anything external
   only the breaking ache of his own body
   the taste of his own blood
   the punch of his own heart
   the rank smell of himself
   the darkness of his own soul

left alone
utterly abandoned by all the universe ..
even the stars he had named left ..
the sun pulled the blinds












that empty space where he hung was his alone
rejected by all

no other creature was there or would have been there
   or could have been there
'twas the stark deep dark
the void of death in full power
dismissing any and all form of life

..

his own mother, though possibly she, more than any other human, sensed something of the terror of his experience, could not be there in that space with him, could not fathom the depths of the void in his soul as he found himself entirely alone, cut off , left to die

..


" my God! .. why have YOU forsaken me .. . "


Trinity had been broken
in two
as one tasted the thorough depravity of deathvoid
   devoid even of his God
      with whom he had enjoyed eternal fellowship

even God ..