I came across an excerpt from this folk poem/song by Sidney Carter in "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Philip Yancey (recommended reading) and was intrigued enough to find the full text online:
It was on a Friday morning that they took me from the cell,
And I say they had a carpenter to crucify as well.
You can blame it on to Pilate, You can blame it on the Jews,
You can blame it on the devil, It's God I accuse.
CHORUS:
It's God they ought to crucify. instead of you and me.
I said to the carpenter, a-hanging on the tree.
You can blame it on to Adam, You can blame it on to Eve,
You can blame it on the apple, but that I can't believe.
It was God that make the devil, and the woman and the man,
And there wouldn't be an apple if it wasn't in the plan.
Now Barrabas was a killer, and they let Barrabas go.
But you are being crucified for nothing here below.
But God is up in heaven and he doesn't do a thing,
With a million angels watching, and they never move a wing.
To hell with Jehovah, to the Carpenter I said;
I wish that a carpenter had made this world instead.
Goodbye and good luck to you, our way will soon divide.
Remember me in heaven, the man you hung beside.
What sticks out to me is not the poem's accusation so much as the irony therein, especially in reference to the cross. The carpenter the narrator addresses is also, in fact, creator of the world. And it was in fact God who was crucified that day. In Yancey's words, "In an incomprehensible way, God personally experienced the cross."
The fact of "a million angels watching, and they never move a wing" is at that moment actually a miraculous display of mercy and restraint as they waited at the call of the carpenter to wreck havoc on the world and take Him off that cross. By that grace of Jesus' restraint God finished his work of redemption for the world in Christ's death in our place so we can stand justified before the Father.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1170682,00.html for more info on the author.
4 comments:
Thanks for the lyrics! I also read this book, and was intrigued by the short poem. The full text is even better then the extract.
The last verse I found a bit more disturbing then the others... But the author has her right to write it as she feels, certanly. Anyway, that's a great poem.
That would be, the author has a right to write it the way HE feels... In any case, the poet is writing from the viewpoint of the thief on the cross, not necessarily his own.
Also, in many Christian churches, the creed is recited: "He was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell..." And so, "To hell with Jehovah!" is another deep irony; it was the curse he bore for us that Jesus/Jehovah did indeed go to hell.
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