Jesus saves

like Pilate the scribes from Roman-rages

and Judas from anxiety pangs

Jesus saves:

decaled salvation peeling off church busses

and paper-houses mildewed underneath

built upon dampness and neglect

Jesus saves

the faint from sinner's sins

the saints from rusting hearts

the rest from the junk on their manicured lawns

Jesus saves

the tragedian pimps

the hawking whores

those stuck in the plague of crack

Jesus saves

the ensconced boldness in Herod's breast

his love for John that a sword can't kill

Jesus saves

the saved for wronged seasons

the wronged for solid reasons

the fallen for salvation-pleasing

*Reflections of Frederick Buechner:

  -Jesus Christ refused the crown that Satan offered him in the wilderness...but he is king nonetheless because again and again he is crown in the heart of the people who believe in him. And that inward coronation takes place, Buttrick said, "among confession, and tears, and great laughter."

  -God's coming is always unforeseen, I think, and the reason, if I had to guess, is that if he gave us anything much in the way of advance warning, more often than not we would have made ourselves scarce long before he got there.

  -Literature, painting and music - the most basic message that art teaches us is to stop, look and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot.  In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things.