The Hostage Deal

Date added: 29/05/2020

THE HOSTAGE DEAL

Between the rolling of the stone

   and the crying of the name

   came the agonising.

Shuddering, Jesus stares into the tomb,

Making a deal with death in the depths.

A greedy exchange is strangely agreed:

Lazarus comes out and he will go in,

The prize of life for the price of death.

The hour of starkness fully come,

The Dealer is struck and laid in the tomb.

Then is the end, but the end is of death:

Through terrifying life in the depths,

Death is destroyed, exploded inside.

Before the rolling of the stone

   and the coming of the women

   came the rising.

© Graham Kings, Nourishing Connections (Canterbury Press, 2020).

first published in The Christian Century 110.11, p. 365 (April 1993), then in Graham Kings, Signs and Seasons (2008), and also on Spiritual Journeys.