The sentence is pronounced, is forever
Being pronounced; there is no escape,
It falls like a stone with the force of stone.
The whole world is stone: this is the power
Of the Empire, and there is none greater.
Dead certain, the Empire rules and orders;
When the Empire asks, everything must answer,
And the Empire makes all answers its own,
The Empire makes all answers stone.

But this answer is silence, unbroken: a well
Into which questions fall and then are thrown back,
Battering the questioner. Nothing else
Has challenged the Empire so openly. Therefore
This is high treason. The Empire is not here
To justify itself: it is here to control
All that is. Yet this silence escapes it,
Defies it. The Empire cowers. Enigma reigns.
Power runs out. Silence remains.

You, who are not only doomed for being who you are,
But must bear your punishment with you as you pass,

We want you-need you-shockingly before us
So you can inspire us with the joy of hate:

You, rebel, blasphemer, traitor, perverter
Of whatever we hold good, true, beautiful;

You, nigger, faggot, spick, you walking obscenity,
You, king of the kikes, you who offend us

But can’t be hidden because we make ourselves see you
And, obsessed with you, we keep you on view:

We shall pluck you out at last, but not until
Our eyes have fed on you and we have gazed our fill.

The sudden lurch. The loss of control.
The panic as the earth flies up.
The thud of the jaw against the stones of the road.
The broken teeth. The bloody nose.
The punch in the gut. The jab in the ribs.
The clawing at the air. The choking and retching.
And always, pressing down, that weight on the back.

The multitude gaped.
Some shouted. Some wept.
Some covered their eyes.
Others tittered, guffawed:
Some blushing, some brazenly
Enjoying the sport:

What a farce! Watch this clown
Make a spectacle of himself!
So he thought he was a hotshot!
But he’s a stumblebum now.
You can’t help laughing.
He should have looked where he was going.

After they met, mother and son,
on the road to certain death,
the look on her face was born again.

And by so doing
he paused in his dying
to work one final
miracle.

Here is someone who steps without warning into history. This man, this Simon of Cyrene, this passerby mentioned in
                only three scripture verses, who was he?
Cyrene is in Africa, but it was settled by Greeks. Was Simon, then, Greek? Perhaps a Greek Jew? Or, just
                conceivably, could Simon have been Black?
What was he doing in Jerusalem? Why was he on that road at that day at that hour? Had he set out to witness the
                execution? Or was he going someplace else?
Who pulled him from the crowd? Why? Was it pure chance? Fate? Was he simply the nearest person? Did someone
                bear a grudge against him? Or was he big and burly and therefore clearly suited to the task?
What did he feel as he was forced into service? Did he regard his assistance as an act of mercy? A civic duty? Or was
                he appalled at helping to hasten a possibly innocent man to his death?
What happened to him afterward? How did he feel? Where did he go? To whom did he talk? What did he say?
And what about you?-

                You on this road
                out walking one day
                when suddenly

                authority
                grabs you
                and tells you

                “These are
                your orders,
                    get going:”

what would you think,
how then would you do
what you had to do?

We all know this story: the good woman Veronica,
Stirred by the sight of Jesus with his cross,
Wipes his brow out of pity, and then finds her veil
Stained with the imprint of his face forever.

Veronica probably never existed.
The tatters of fabric a few churches have kept
With growing embarrassment over the centuries
Are surely fakes. What is authentic is the stain.

There is a stain on the world that does not fade.
It is on the road that Jesus trod and on your road home,
It is on the soiled blankets in which the homeless are wrapped,
And in the crumbling hallways where the addicts huddle.

The stain is on the world, it is on the mount
That looks like a skull, and on the mountains that are piles
Of human skulls. It is a smudge in the street
No sweeper can erase. It is a blot, our history.

Veronica may be a fiction, her veil a fabrication,
Her act of pity a pious lesson or fable.
But that image--that stain-remains with us still:
More than poetry or paint, it is literal, real.

There are times
when nothing helps.
The burdens
keep pushing down.

Though friends step forward
with gifts and loans,
the debts increase.
After one more drink,
the vow is broken,
the lover battered,
the child abandoned.
The diplomats
at the conference
frown and hurry home.
Despite medication,
the second attack
follows the first;
the cancer recurs,
there will be
no remission.

This is the hardest
knowledge to bear:
that our caring can be
to no avail;
there is nothing left
to do but fail.

After the last calamity and awaiting the next,
They are gathered there, witnessing, weeping, always weeping.
And their murmurings are as endless as waterfalls
In the distance or the hum of traffic
Bearing people along to unknown destinations.
Their lamentations tremble like candles in the darkness.
Their sighs rustle like surf, like oceans of leaves
Or seas of grain chanting in the prairie wind.
Their voices ring like church bells over fields
Or the bells that hourly bind city streets together,
And their cries rise up in constellations of grief
Until the stars at night are their burning tears.

And always, they weep, they reach out, and their touch
Offers milk and rice, honey and chocolate.
A touch familiar as cradles or hearthfires,
It brings the solace of hot soup at sickbeds,
Heavy blankets for the long nights and mittens
In blizzards. It shelters and reassures like weathered wood
Or well-worn shirts. Like visas clutched at checkpoints,
It promises safe passage. But there will be none;
Every border has closed. So their weeping goes on.
All they can offer are the tears of their eyes
And the touch of their hands. Yet the way they gather there
Serves forever as chronicle, memorial, and prayer.

Nothing. There is nothing to be done.
Nothing will be accomplished.
Yet nothing will be undone.
Nothing will grow better. Nothing will alter.
Whatever is proposed can only end in nothing.
Nothing makes a difference. There is no point
In glancing back, no point in starting over,
No point in falling, no point in rising up,
No point in struggling onward, yet this happens,
And it leads to nothing, nothing more, for no reason.
What is done is nothing, nothing can be done.

Look, we have him, all of him, he’s ours.
Everything is ordered, numbered, filed.
Here is his outerwear;
Over there, his underclothes.
And these are the objects we found on his person:
The coins, the keys.
This pile contains the hairs of his head;
That pile is his beard.
Notice the separate compartments we have made
For nose hair, earwax, nail parings,
For blemishes, moles, birthmarks, warts.
Here is stored the color of his eyes;
There we have kept the color of his skin.
His memories, his stories, his turns of phrase-
These, too, we have taken away from him.
He has nothing left he can call his own.
He is all ours. See:
Now he is ready.

It was a lingering death.
(What time is it? How much time will it take?)
The victim’s arms were stretched along the crossbeams, and a nail was driven with a mallet into the center of his open
          palms.
His feet were placed over each other and another huge nail was pounded into them.
To prevent hands and feet from being torn away by the victim’s own weight, a projection in the center of the cross
          supported the body as it hung.
After the nails were hammered, the cross was raised up and secured in the earth.
(What time is it now? How much time is to come?)
The unnatural position made the slightest movement painful. Other tortures of the cross: dizziness, cramps,
          sleeplessness, fever, tetanus, and, always, the awareness of an approaching death that, strangely, also seemed
          far-off, for the torment, though unceasing, was never so extreme as to render the victim unconscious.
(How much time has passed? How much time is left?)
As each misery increased, so did a burning thirst and a raging hunger.
Victims could be struck by passersby or pecked at by birds.
Sometimes death did not occur for three days.
(How much time has this taken? How many, seconds, minutes, hours
          remain?)
Jesus cried out, and cried again.
(Does time never end? Does pain?)

There was a cloud of darkness, a black cloud of flies,
Their buzzing inescapable, maddening, endless.
There came cloud upon cloud: smog smothered the cities,
And smoke spewed forth from factories and death-camp chimneys.

The stink was unbearable: sweat, vomit, feces,
Puddles of urine, raw sewage in harbors,
Highway exhaust, tear gas, chemical fumes,
The reek of burnt-out tenements and gangrenous wounds.

And still it continues. The pipe bombs, car bombs, mail bombs
Explode. Power stations collapse. Graves give up ghosts:
Mosquitoes, viruses, radiation from waste dumps.
Milk sours. Wells sicken. Blood and semen bear pestilence.

Earth’s wine turns vinegar. We harvest cinders,
Feast on ashes. Creation withers. The flies still buzz.
“It is finished.” All is lost. Who now can save us?
The lesions keep spreading. And where is God in this?

Bless the kind hands of friends, the gentle hands
That work with compassion that there might be
This small dignity at the last.

Bless the hands that bring spices, the aloes
And myrrh, bless the hands holding the linen,
The freshness in which the body now lies.

Let that fabric stretch into the ages.
Let the aroma of those spices rise
Like incense from an altar: let it be

The steam of coffee mugs on a clean white
Tablecloth. Let friends and kindred be joined
Together at this table while they plan

The service to come. Let them feast on bread,
And coffee as strong as their affection
For that dear one and for one another.

Let them weep, and let them laugh to recall
Words said, things done, the comforts and mercies
Of days gone by. Gather them in kitchens

Around the world. Breaking bread, filling cups,
Sharing their love. Bless them at their tables.
Bless their hands and hearts. Bless these good souls.

Here at the close is stone once more. The tomb is sealed.
What’s left is watching, hoping, keeping faith.

Seasons pass, and centuries. The world grows old,
And good and evil still contend.
Nothing we can say is ever enough.
Nothing we can do is ever enough.
We await a gift.
And it is given:

For see how the calendar offers
Its eternal hints of triumph. Before
Advent leads toward a humble birth
There has been the feast of Christ the King.
And before our wilderness journey through Lent
Comes another feast: Transfiguration.
So the year rolls round. And, as for stone,

There is nothing harder or more unyielding;
And there is nothing softer, more yielding than water,
Yet water can find its way into stone.
Rain falls, rocks erode, seeds break through:
So the seed of Easter is in the stone now,
Has ever been, and ever will be.

Then let us take time, shower stone with our tears,
Rejoice at the feasts, be steadfast in the desert,
Work toward the good, and pray without ceasing
For the stone to give way and the tomb to flower
Now and forever, again and again.

Amen.

Text Copyright 2007 by Jack Anderson. For permission to reproduce, please contact Rev. Philip Dougharty at rector@stjohnsgrace.com or Jack Anderson at 40 E. 10th St. (Apt. 1H), New York, N.Y. 10003.

Images Copyright 2007 by John Schimminger. You may reproduce these images for liturgical purposes. Please notify johnwschimminger@yahoo.com .  

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