Daniel Potts

Provided by CN Building Adult Ministries Resource Center

Why me?

In all this faceless wall of flesh

that marks His march of death

why must I bear the load of One

condemned to hang upon the Skull?

Why me?

Are not my clothes and skin the same

as many here who’ve come to view

His punishment for blasphemy?

Because I have no choice

I shoulder now the splintered weight

and focus on the stones beneath

as upward toward death’s hill we climb.

(My strength has been a source of pride.)

I pause to wipe the sweat and spit of jeering mouths

and shore up timbers for the steeper stretch ahead.

Briefly, as this sweltering gauntlet

seems to close its tomb-like walls

oppressively upon my way,

imagination places me in His dark path.

But then the vapors of my mind’s mirage

burn off as noonday nears.

Though straining fast to look away

I feel compelled to turn toward Him

as if His glance has cast its net around my eyes

(as if His heart knew where to cast).

Surrendering, I turn His way

and indescribably am drawn

to depths I cannot now express,

I feel the farthest reaches of my soul

are hauled aboard a sturdy ship

and lain secure upon its deck.

Turning back toward the Skull

I sense the wooden weight becoming

more than I can bear.

The strength upon which I rely

is fading fast,

and not a single soul

within this wailing wall of flesh

will stoop to help me on.

Unthinkably I somehow feel

inside my inner self compelled

to draw upon a greater might than I possess,

which seems as though it lies within my reach.

I look again upon the One

whose surrogate I have become.

His broken, bruised and crumbling frame

has surely trudged its final steps,

and leaves a wake of life’s-blood

like a river through this fleshly gorge.

How can it be

that as my gaze meets His once more

within the bedrock of my soul

I sense a power more secure

than any ever known,

and feel it offered me?

How does this One who now appears

to cling to life with thread-bare grip

save strength enough to somehow help

the man that’s helping Him?

I know not how nor why,

only that in these final weary steps

I see in places deep within

a sturdy ship a-sail upon a crimson tide

which flows from out a barren hill

with me aboard

at rest in Him.

Dr. Daniel Potts practices Neurology in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.