Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy
(1883-1929)
Matthew 25:31-46
When Jesus came to Golgotha
They hanged Him on a tree,
They drave great nails through hands and feet,
And made a Calvary.
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns;
Red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days,
And human flesh was cheap.
When Jesus came to Birmingham,
They simply passed Him by;
They never hurt a hair of Him,
They only let Him die.
For men had grown more tender,
And they would not give Him pain;
They only just passed down the street,
And left Him in the rain.
Still Jesus cried, “Forgive them,
For they know not what they do.”
And still it rained the winter rain
That drenched Him through and through.
The crowds went home and left the streets
Without a soul to see;
And Jesus crouched against a wall
And cried for Calvary.1
- Pastor Percy Gutteridge quotes this entire poem in This Shall Be a Sign Unto You. ↩
This poem has stuck with me since I first read it decades ago. I insert the “United States” or the “church” for “Birmingham.” Now more than ever in this present pandemic of Coronavirus, and, the pandemic of grossly unhealthy governance we need to reject our Indifference and adopt Jesus’ precept of love for our neighbor.
So many of us, American Christians, are willing to be indifferent to the darkness within us in exchange for the self-righteous demands we make of non-believers.