Father Forgive: a poem for Good Friday

Father forgive

This poem on ‘Father forgive’, one of Jesus central ‘sayings from the cross’, was originally published in my collection Parable and Paradox, and I post it here, for the first time, for Good Friday. You can hear me read the poem by clicking on the title or the ‘Play’ button.

Father Forgive 

Luke 23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

 

Father forgive, and so forgiveness flows;

Flows from the very wound our hatred makes,

Flows through the taunts, the curses and the blows,

Flows through our wasted world, a healing spring,

Welling and cleansing, washing all the marks

Away, the scores and scars of every wrong.

 

Forgiveness flows to where we need it most:

Right in the pit and smithy of our sin,

Just where the dreadful nails are driven in,

Just where our woundedness has done its worst.

We know your cry of pain should be a curse,

Yet turn to you and find we have been blessed.

We know not what we do, but Heaven knows

For every sin on earth, forgiveness flows.