Good Friday - The Word of the Cross

The Word of the Cross

Look on thy God, Christ hidden in our flesh.

A bitter word, the cross, and bitter sight:

Hard rind without, to hold the heart of heaven.

Yet sweet it is; for God upon that tree

Did offer up His life: upon that rood

My Life hung, that my life might stand in God.

Christ, what am I to give Thee for my life?

Unless take from Thy hands the cup they hold,

To cleanse me with the precious draught of death.

What shall I do? My body to be burned?

Make myself vile? The debt’s not paid out yet.

Whate’er I do, it is but I and Thou,

And still do I come short, still must Thou pay

My debts, O Christ; for debts Thyself had none.

What love may balance Thine? My Lord was found

In fashion like a slave, that so His slave

Might find himself in fashion like his Lord.

Think you the bargain’s hard, to have exchanged

The transient for the eternal, to have sold

Earth to buy Heaven?

More dearly God bought me.

Written by Paulinus of Nola 

(c 354 - 431 AD)