Note from Valerie: Here is a poem from our beloved Ann Mead. This Holy week is going to be very busy for our e-Ministry! I have a poem from Faye Lowes to share with you early in the week - a devotional from Max Lucado - sll sorts of exciting writings all leading up to the day when EVERYTHING changed. Thank you Ann for sharing your talent with us!
IF I HAD BEEN BARABBAS
by Ann Reed-Mead
If I had been Barabbas, a criminal and a castaway,
Sitting in a dank, dark prison awaiting my judgment day,
Hearing Passover crowds in the street and the noise of their celebration,
Feeling the weight of my sin and the despair of alienation,
Then hearing them call for Barabbas and the words, "crucify him,"
Would I think it was me they wanted to nail to a cross so grim?
As the guards came to loose me, would I calculate
That I deserved my punishment as they led me to my fate?
And as I entered the court and found that I was free,
What thoughts raced through my mind? Would I wonder, "why me?"
Then would I walk up to Calvary to view the one on MY cross,
Still wondering why I was forgiven while He had suffered loss?
Christ took Barabbas’ place and forgave him of his sin.
Barabbas was given another chance and a new life, that day, to begin.
I wonder sometimes what he did with the new start he got that day.
Did he become a new man, or did he just walk away -
Going back to his old ways never feeling the enormity
Of the price Christ had paid to set such a criminal free?
I am the same today as I stand before the cross
I can reject Christ’s forgiveness and then I, too, can gloss
Over the sins I’ve committed and go back to my old ways
Forgetting the cross and its meaning and all that it portrays,
Or, I can accept Christ’s forgiveness being willing to suffer loss,
For like the sinner, Barabbas, Christ died upon MY cross.
Posted by Valerie at April 8, 2006 12:45 PM