7. Peter before the High Priest.

You command be silent about God’s Son.

You threaten to beat us if we disobey

But we have seen the risen Holy One.

This we solemnly swear to you this day.

Your envy nailed Jesus to the cruel cross,

But we do not fear your rod or stone.

What can you do that we would count as loss?

For us power resides in God alone.

Your hollow threats we regard without dread

For we have beheld with our very own eyes,

Jesus, the Christ, alive, raised from the dead,

Which we will declare for the ears of the wise.

Death over Him no longer has dominion.

Nor do you, who are empty death’s minion.

6. Mary Magdalene at the Cross

Bewildered, grieving, numbingly subdued,

Silenced by overwhelming pain and loss,

She watched as the crude, cruel nails were removed

And the limp body lowered from the cross.

The body she helped prepare with stifled cries

And though Passover meant she couldn’t stay

She resolved in three days to early rise

And anoint Him in a more beautiful way.

Through blinding tears, on the third day, before morn,

She saw the tomb empty, then heard His voice,

And upon her it instantly dawned

That He had risen and her heart rejoiced,

Thrilled, surged, beat ecstatically faster

As she fell, clung to Him and cried “Master”.

5. Last Words.

“Finished.” The word, through pain, rang clear,

Though upon the cross He suffered and bled.

“Finished”, He could at last declare

As after the sixth hour He felt life ebb;

“Finished”, but not the anguish of final defeat

From a man soon to die upon a cross;

“Finished” was a life’s purpose complete,

Declaring emphatic triumph, not painful loss.

Finished forever was the curse of death,

Finished forever the anguish of grief;

No longer could the tangled cords of death

Hold those who beheld Him in true belief.

“Finished”, followed by words of trusting merit:

“Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.”

4. Let me not diminish His wonder

Let me not diminish His wonder

By declaring He was God come to earth.

In a woman’s womb a foetus enlarged

Until a virgin brought a baby to birth.

A child, growing strong in spirit and mind,

Became a man who, by the blue lake’s shore

Healed the sick, dumb, lame, grief-stricken and blind.

This man felt for the afflicted and poor, 

This man gave without counting the cost,

This man In Gethsemane pleaded and sighed,

This man bled painfully upon the cross

And this man suffered until this man died.

Ask though to see God in the human race

And I say look then upon this man’s face.