Pilate's Decision

*** Revised Common Lectionary *** Lectionary Reading: John 18:33-37 CLASSIC POEM: Pilate Gerard Manley Hopkins Unchill’d I handle stinging snow; The sun whose vast afflictive heat Does lay men low with one blade’s sudden blow Cleaves not my brain, burns not my feet, When the fierce skies are blue to black, albeit The shearing rays contract me with their blaze Most dead-alive upon those days. Then I seek out the shadow and stones And to those stones become akin My several moans come distant in their tones As though they were not from within And for that fearful hour life is more thin And numbs and starves, as between icy wharves A freezing runnel sobs and dwarfs. Sometimes I see the summit stake High up the balanced stony air In whose dead lake even a voice may make The hanging snows rush down and bare Their rocky lodges. Then the weather rare Allows the sound of bells in hamlets round To come to me from the underground. Often when winds impenitent Beat, heave and the strong mountain tire I can stand pent in the monstrous element And feel no blast. — O fretful fire Breathe o’er my bare nerve rather. I desire They swathe and lace the shroud-plaits o’er my face, But to be ransom’d from this place. Whatever time this vapourous roof, The screen of my captivity, Folds off aloof, that signal is and proof Not of clear skies, but storm to be. But then I make an eager shift to see Houses that make abode beside the lake, And then my heart goes near to break. Then clouds come, like ill-balanced crags, Shouldering. Down valleys smokes the gloom. The thunder brags. In joints and sparkling jags The lightnings leap. The day of doom! I cry ” O rocks and mountain make me room” And yet I know it would be better so, Ay, sweet to taste beside this woe. ***** The pang of Tartarus, Christians hold, Is this, from Christ to be shut out. This outer cold, my exile from of old From God and man, is hell no doubt. Would I could hear the other Pilates shout. But yet they say Christ comes at the last day. Then will he keep in this stay? There is a day of all the year When life revisits me, nerve and vein. They all come here and stand before me clear I try the Christus o’er again. Sir! Christ! against this multitude I strain. — Lord, but they cry so loud. And what am I? And all in one say ” Crucify!” Before that rock, my seat, He stands; And then — I choke to tell this out — I give commands for water for my hands; And some of those who stand about, — Vespillo my centurion hacks out Some ice that locks the glacier to the rocks And in a bason brings the blocks. I choose one; but when I desire To wash before the multitude The vital fire does suddenly retire From hands now clammy with strange blood. My frenzied working is not understood. Now I grow numb. My tongue strikes on the gum And cleaves, I struggle and am dumb. I hear the multitude tramp by. O here is the most piteous part, For He whom I send forth to crucify, Whispers ” If thou have warmth at heart Take courage; this shall need no further art.” ***** I have a hope if so it be, A hope of an approved device; I will break free from the Jews’ company, And find a flint, a fang of ice, Or fray a granite from the precipice: When this is sought trees will be wanting not, And I shall shape one to my thought. Thus I shall make a cross, and in’t Will add a footrest there to stand, And with sharp flint will part my feet and dint The point fast in, and my left hand Lock with my right; then knot a barken band To hold me quite fix’d in the selfsame plight; And thus I will thrust in my right: — I’ll take in hand the blady stone And to my palm the point apply, And press it down, on either side a bone, With hope, with shut eyes, fixedly; Thus crucified as I did crucify. *** This poem is in the public domain, and may be read in a live-streamed worship service. CONTEMPORARY POEM: Pilate’s Wife Carol Ann Duffy SNIPPET: Firstly, his hands – a woman’s. Softer than mine, with pearly nails, like shells from Galilee. Indolent hands. Camp hands that clapped for grapes. Their pale, mothy touch made me flinch. Pontius. … [ READ THE FULL POEM ]