The boy knew about blood.
A sign of sacrifice, it flowed
through every festival and feast.
His people saw the power
and the promise in those streams,
the blood of beasts.
But when, amid the yearly plans,
the old recurring rites,
did he learn he was the Lamb?
Maybe when his mother told him tales
of men who sprinkled drops
across the veil.
Or when he saw the stains beneath
the fingernails of busy priests
who patted his small head and said
“How much you’ve grown!”
Was it at the tender age of twelve
when at the temple he outshined the wise
and left his parents wide-eyed?
Or did something simply click one year
as he saw the scapegoat damned
and chased outside the camp?
How his young heart must have raced
when scribes unfolded the scrolls
and read those prophecies of old:
Isaiah’s poem, infused with blood.
Is that the one that made him think
“That’s me”?
Was that the word that wakened him
who takes away the world’s sin?
Leave a Reply