No angry mobs now, Holy God,

Screaming “crucify!”

It is not anger, but distress,

we see in your faces, the faces that we watch

over and over and over again.

Distress because you stand and bear witness

to the suffering that makes us turn away.

We turn the channel, put off the screen, say

we cannot stand to watch the cruelty of it all.

But you stood there and had

the courage not to close your eyes.

Christ-like in the way, you bore the suffering of another.

Darnella and the children,

carrying trauma beyond their years,

still with the wisdom to press record.

Donald and Charles, imagining themselves,

under the crucifier’s knee.

Genevieve, like Magdalene,

wanting to revive.

And Courteney, who he called Mama,

the Pieta in repose.

This was no angry mob, screaming crucify.

These were the ones, gathered at the

foot of the cross until the very end.

Grief-stricken, dumb-founded

at the horrors of public execution.

Gathered still, this Holy Week,

no less distressed in their witness.

Calm voices and gentle tears proclaim

the suffering from which the world turns away.

Christ-like in the way, they’ve born the death of another.

And in their cross-examined explanations,

those of us who find the courage

not to look away, also find the angry mob

not in the onlookers, but in the

burning within our own hearts,

at the injustices of our broken world.

And we cry out, “How long, O Lord,

how long will you forsake us still?”

And we pray because we do not know

what redemption will look like now.

We pray, Holy God, because we cannot fathom

that Resurrection will come.

And as we witness the sorrow of those

who bear witness to crucifixion,

we cry out to you, Holy God.

For even three days is too long to wait.

(Selah)

Amen.