We continue our Lenten meditations with stanzas 38 – 47 of George Herbert’s poem “The Sacrifice.” 

(The bullets allow me to single-space the lines.)

• Weep not, dear friends, since I for both have wept
• When all my tears were blood, the while you slept:
• Your tears for your own fortunes should be kept:
•                                               Was ever grief like mine?

• The soldiers lead me to the common hall;
• There they deride me, they abuse me all:
• Yet for twelve heav’nly legions I could call:
•                                               Was ever grief like mine?

• Then with a scarlet robe they me array;
• Which shows my blood to be the only way
• And cordial left to repair man’s decay:
•                                               Was ever grief like mine?

• Then on my head a crown of thorns I wear:
• For these are all the grapes Zion doth bear,
• Though I my vine planted and watered there:
•                                                Was ever grief like mine?

• So sits the earth’s great curse in Adam’s fall
• Upon my head: so I remove it all
• From th’ earth unto my brows, and bear the thrall:
•                                               Was ever grief like mine?

• Then with the reed they gave to me before,
• They strike my head, the rock from thence all store
• Of heav’nly blessings issue evermore:
•                                               Was ever grief like mine?

• They bow their knees to me, and  cry, Hail king:
• What ever scoffs & scornfulness can bring,
• I am the floor, the sink, where they it fling:
•                                               Was ever grief like mine?

• Yet since man’s scepters are as frail as reeds,
• And thorny all their crowns, bloody their weeds;
• I, who am Truth, turn into truth their deeds:
•                                               Was ever grief like mine?

• The soldiers also spit upon that face,
• Which Angels did desire to have the grace,
• And Prophets, once to see, but found no place:
•                                               Was ever grief like mine?

• Thus trimmed, forth they bring me to the rout,
• Who Crucify him, cry with one strong shout.
• God holds his peace at man, and man cries out:
•                                               Was ever grief like mine?  –“The Sacrifice” by George Herbert, stanzas 38 – 47.

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. (Matthew 27.27 – 30, ESV)

PS It’s also St Patrick’s Day. This post from 2022 describes his work as an innovative missionary.