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At All This Morbid Talk About A Cross
[after Mark 8:34]
"After all this discussion of a cross,
"I tell you---I will never carry one.
"Yes, I know who they say He is---God's Son.
"I am a Roman's son, with a good name.
"I am privileged to be a citizen
"of Rome---my father's father bravely earned
"the title, fighting for Octavian
"against Egypt's pharaonic tyranny
"of Cleopatra and Mark Antony.
"The concept of the cross---well, I have spurned
"the very thought that it provides Salvation.
"It is a punishment of degradation,
"a sign and instrument of basest shame.
"It wracks flesh with relentless agony.
"To think a cross can bring a kind of gain---
"and not, instead, the worst possible loss---
"puts Roman common sense skeptic strain.
"I will have nothing of it, nor will claim
"its presence in a statement of belief.
"I like that Teacher, come from Galilee,
"but sometimes His Words set me off to grief."
Starward
