Kevin Hartnett Poetry

We Esteemed Him Not

We esteemed Him not,

Nor sorrowed in our shame;

His suffering, our redemption wrought;

Yet we thought Him to blame.

We esteemed Him not;

Despised His bloodied face;

How foreign any notion that

In love He took our place! 

 

We regarded not

Our wickedness and guilt,

Nor recognized the Gift of God

Whose precious blood was spilt.

He regarded not,

Rejection, hate, and pride,

But offered up for sinful men

His hands, His feet, and side.

 

We esteemed Him not;

What thankless creatures, we!

Forsaking Him, our Blessed Hope,

The Christ, at Calvary!

Mocking while He bore

The stripes we should have worn,

We spurned His silent sacrifice,

And hurled on Him our scorn.

 

Lord, remember not

My spittle in Your beard;

Forgive the savage words, O God,

In hatred that I jeered.

Now, and ever more,

Your cross may I embrace;

Forever humbly honoring

The wonder of Your grace.

 

-- K. Hartnett, June 1999

 

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.  Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.  (Isaiah 53:3)

This poem grew out of my meditation on Isaiah 53- a section of scripture I was memorizing with my children.  The 'poetry' of verse three particularly struck me.  Here Isaiah who lived hundreds of years before Christ, prophesies of Him in the past tense and includes himself - as if somehow projected into the future- with the statement '...we esteemed Him not.'  The inescapable sense of the text is that we all - past, present, and future, are responsible for Christ's death.  "All we, like sheep, have gone astray, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

 

And Then...

I saw them lift that awful tree, 

And then His face came clear-

The beating by the Roman guards

Had plainly been severe. 

His fabled, otherworldly eyes

Swelled thin from blows to them; 

And then the soldiers cursed the Jews,

And spit on Him again. 

 

He pulled and then He seized a breath,

And fell back from the pain. 

A trickle from His punctured brow 

Raced past His tongue in vain. 

So many times I’d heard Him speak; 

So much He taught seemed true...

And then- I’m not sure why- He said:

“They know not what they do.” 

 

The soldiers sat, and then began 

To gamble for His cloak. 

That some who touched it had been healed

Was bandied as a joke. 

“He lies,“ the leaders said, and then

Insulted Him in spite;

But I had seen it with my eyes- 

And knew that they weren’t right.

 

Two criminals were there as well,

Both being crucified.

They joined the others mocking that

The Christ would thus have died.

And then one seemed to soften-

Like he feared to God his vice.

He prayed, and then from Jesus

There was promised Paradise.

 

And then the countryside grew dark;

The ground began to shake;

And even the Centurion,

Great dread did overtake.

We heard Him cry, “It’s finished!” as

The earth howled in defraud,

And then we knew for certain that

This was the Son of God.

 

I searched for His disciples hard,

And then we heard it said:

“An angel’s told the women

He has risen from the dead!”

And so I sold all that I owned

And joined their company,

For He “would see them when He rose,”

And then, “in Galilee.”

 

-- K. Hartnett, April 2002

I carried the words "and then" around in my spirit for a long time before I got an idea for how to use them.  The poem obviously tells the story of the crucifixion, but also carries along a different story - the testimony of one gradually seeing and understanding that Christ was indeed the Son of God - and what effect that should have on living and believing.  Every Christian has their own "and then" story of God's gracious enlightenment and their response of faith and commitment.

And In That Darkened Fluid Red

They rose beneath His punctured brow

And trickled quickly down His face.

Repulsion at the sheer disgrace

Made Jewish faithful disallow

That here the blood of sacrifice

Was dripping onto dusty ground,

And underneath that twisted crown-

The greatest gift one could endow.

It was indeed a mystery,

Though not for lack of plain discourse;

And miracles did sure endorse

His claims as more than sophistry, 

Yet somehow deafness struck the ear,

And eyes, though open, bluntly failed

To see the limbs there cruelly nailed

Shed life for all humanity.

 

The Law prescribed it long before-

An offering to cover sin.

But slaughtered sheep could scarce begin

To empty God’s expunging store.

The want in ev’ry human act-

But worse than that- each motive there

Came boldly naked; unaware

What Holy eyes could but abhor.

 

Unclear then was the cost at hand,

Or that one Figure could suffice

To pay for the accounted vice

Of all who failed the Law’s demand.

‘Twas Him alone- the Pascal Lamb-

Who, blemish free, would there atone

And bear the wrath of God alone

To ransom sinners- just as planned.

 

And so we gaze into the cup,

Remembering that fateful day

A fellow sinner would betray

The Blessed One with whom he supped.

And in that darkened fluid red,

Our full reflection may we see-

That pressing to the cross may we

Be sprinkled clean by looking up.

-- K. Hartnett, May 2006

I read a poem that used a similar rhyming scheme and was captivated by the challenge of doing something like it.  It was definitely a challenge, but I'm happy with the result.

In verse three, I liken being startled by a naked person to the reaction- greatly oversimplified and weakened- of God to human sin.  His holiness is afronted by it in a way we simply can't fully understand.  A preacher once compared the stench of human sin in God's nostrils to the stench we smell when walking through the pig house at a state fair.  Those who work in the house get so used to it, they don't really mind it- or notice it - but an outsider sure does!  God is outside even the slightest hint of sin.  How it must affect Him!