Haiku of the end.

Should we pity him,

Judas, called Iscariot?

He made his choices.

Eat my body-bread

and drink of my red wine-blood;

remember my life.

Even you, Peter,

you will also run away;

three times denying.

In garden prayers

he asks to be delivered.

His companions sleep.

They come with clubs, swords

and a resolve to end it.

He is arrested.

Tried by Caiaphas,

convicted of blasphemy.

Never any doubt.

Taken to Pilate

to receive his death sentence;

this King of the Jews.

Silence, his answer,

he calmly accepts his fate;

trusts himself to God.

The crowd finds its voice.

Convicted and condemned,

he is led away.

The cross is shouldered,

and taken beyond the gates,

to the killing place.

There is no mercy.

The man is fixed to his cross

and lifted up high.

The skies are darkened.

A cry of dereliction

signifies the end.

They mounted a guard

at the entrance to the tomb:

what did they expect?

© Ken Rookes 2017