I am not a huge poetry fan though I have read poems I’ve enjoyed and actually wrote some poems for my college magazine when I was a student. I did, however, enjoy reading the poetry of the 17th century metaphysical poet, John Donne. Donne, an Anglican priest wrote religious and secular poetry. His religious poetry was elegant and beautiful and his secular poetry was elegant, but often funny and scandalous.
To me, his greatest poem (which follows) was Good Friday 1613: Riding Westward.
The poem was about him riding westward, away from the crucifixion of Jesus that was taking place in the east. While his soul was telling him to face the east, his body was on a horse, riding westward, facing away and running away from the cross.
His poem reminds me that we Christians have a strange relationship with the cross. We are willing to talk about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, but we don’t really like to think about it that much. We talk about it superciliously, even flippantly, but we don’t want to engage it very much. We are often willing to sing bouncy songs about the blood of Jesus that often seem to not embrace that this was real blood shed painfully.
Often we ministers lament on Easter Sunday that it’s the day when we see people we hardly ever see but I really don’t. I sometimes lament that we are very willing to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus but are unwilling to visit the grave. We celebrate Jesus being raised but sometimes fail to view Jesus dying.
Every year, on Good Friday, I reread this poem and wonder about it. Am I facing east, toward the events on the hill or am I facing west.? Of maybe the bigger question is am I facing west and fooling myself by saying and believing I am facing east?
To me, it’s a reminder to not look away. Jesus, on the cross, could see those around him. He was higher up so he could actually see further than the people at the base of the cross.
I wonder sometimes what he’s viewing me doing….am I riding west, or have I turned around and faced east? Am I riding westward or am I truly present.
These are my Good Friday questions….
Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
BY JOHN DONNE
Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other Spheares, by being growne
Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:
Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit
For their first mover, and are whirld by it.
Hence is't, that I am carryed towards the West
This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.
There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;
But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I'almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for mee.
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?
It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,
It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And tune all spheares at once peirc'd with those holes?
Could I behold that endlesse height which is
Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood which is
The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,
Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne
By God, for his apparell, rag'd, and torne?
If on these things I durst not looke, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was Gods partner here, and furnish'd thus
Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom'd us?
Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,
They'are present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look'st towards mee,
O Saviour, as thou hang'st upon the tree;
I turne my backe to thee, but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,
Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,
Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,
That thou may'st know mee, and I'll turne my face.
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