Look

by fireheartedkaratepup

Published April 24, 2011

In Short stories

Spoiler! :
Inspired by The Passion of the Christ. Which, actually, I'm not that fond of--especially today. I'm not in the mood to watch it. At all.

But since I've grown up in a Christian home in the middle of a Bible Belt, I've heard the Easter story hundreds of times, and I got to thinking about how God had to turn his face away from Jesus for a time. This is the result.

God cannot look at me today.

I have sinned, so I must offer a sacrifice to absolve myself.

Then he will be able to look at me again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

God cannot look at me today.

I have touched an unclean animal, so I must stay outside my town until enough time has passed.

This is how it has been since the time of Moses. This is how it will be until the Messiah comes.

======================

God cannot look at me today.

I have taken on the sins of my people, and I must die before he will be able to look at me again.

The weight of it all is so great that the whips, though painful, seem gentle in comparison to the pain inside my heart.

-----------------------------

God can look at me today.

For the first time in a long time, God can look at me.

I’m so happy.

Spoiler! :
The first part is a person, probably before the time of Moses, but after the sacrificial system was implemented.

The second is, obviously, someone before Jesus, but after Moses.

The third is Jesus.

The last is a modern-day man--I was going to write more, but... eh. I don't really like preachy, and I was afraid this was heading there.

Comments & reviews · 4
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Jennya
Review
Jennya wrote a review Review · Apr 24, 2011

Nice, though it did think it was rather blatantly preachy and a little bit to strong on the God side i agree that the progression is quite nice.
What annoyed me the most about this are the separating things, they where absolutely unnecessary , I can already tell its a different subject and voice. I suggest you separate it into clear stanzas, the fancy line in the middle detract from the actual poem.

Apart from that, it was a nice simple poem, the repartition was nice but i did have questions about the second stanza, 'unclean animal? ' But that's just me. It would be nice to do it on actual figures, like do a stanza on Moses, not just people from that period, the Jesus stanzas feels a little out of place because they he is so important and the others are not.

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yombleflobber
Review
yombleflobber wrote a review Review · Apr 24, 2011

Yeah, I can imagine that much more might be a bit preachy. I like the progression, it's pretty accurate and it's nice to see the way it was in contrast to what it is now. Of course, not everyone wants God to see them, but it's nice to know that he will even when we have sinned.

User avatar
Sassykat
Review
Sassykat wrote a review Review · Apr 24, 2011

This was....different. I think, though I'm not sure, that this was supposed to symbolize the different views on christ and repentance through different time periods? Let me know if I'm wrong. If this is what you meant, you did a really good job with it.



Maybe what most people wanted wasn't immortality and fame, but the reassurance that their existence had meant something. No matter how long... or how brief. Maybe being eternal meant becoming a story worth telling.
— Roshani Chokshi, Aru Shah and the Nectar of Immortality