In the Darkest Night of your Soul.
In the dim desolation of your Gethsemane.
When all of your disciples still sleep.
When your God is deaf to your cry to remove the cup.
When your final desperate demand to know “Why God has forsaken you?” echoes across an empty Universe.
Then the time of your awakening is at hand.
You are constructing in your individual passion the drama of resurrection.
Ah! But now with a difference.
This time you’re the central character.
This time at last, you play the leading part.
Fulfilling the law as you go, marking each milestone with your healing grace, you walk the seven miles from Bethlehem to Jerusalem and are met at the place of the skull.
You know the script well for you’ve rehearsed every character.
You’ve been the soldier that rolled the dice
and the one with the spear that pierced.
In one scene you’ve shouted “Hosanna, Hosanna”
and called “Barabbas, save Barabbas” in the next.
You’ve denied with Peter, connived as Judas, and doubted as Thomas.
As a blind man you’ve seen, as a cripple you’ve walked.
As a leper your sores have been healed.
You’ve puzzled as Nicodemus, pretended as Pilate
and as Lazarus come forth at His call.
And now getting closer – you’ve played the dear virgin
and pondered His birth in your heart.
At last are you shorn of – in one terrible moment –
the last vestige of armour from Truth.
Now call out to God, now call out at last,
the victorious shout of surrender.
“Father, into thy hands I command my whole self.”
“It is finished. It is finished forever.”
Up, up you arise from the tomb that is earth,
impregnant with light of fulfillment.
Now the veil of your temple is rent and the dazzling beauty
of your Sonship is revealed in full array.
And now the most exciting, glorious, stupendous surprise
there could ever be in all of time:
You’re still you.
All that has happened is that you have awakened
from your fearful dream of destruction and death.
The Earth is over, gone and never was.
You’re home in the heaven you never left.
And every loving thought you ever had while dreaming is with you still, along with all your other eternal creations.
"Heaven is all around you – sleeping ones!"
