Three Meditations on Judgement and Grace
Our Folly
I do not know the weight of sin
That hides beneath another’s skin,
Nor why the silent stranger weeps
When all the world around him sleeps.
I do not see the years of pain
That watered pride or nurtured shame.
I only glimpse what lies above—
The mask, the wound, the want of love.
I speak too quick, presume too much,
As though I hold the Judge’s touch.
But mercy whispers soft and low:
There’s more to every soul than show.
So let me kneel with empty hands
And trust what I can’t understand—
That grace is deeper than my sight,
And God alone will set things right.
If Heaven opens wide its gate
For one I feared or learned to hate,
May I not grudge, but humbly find
That I too stood in need—
And blind.
Coda
We speak of Heaven, point to Hell,
As if we hold the keys and bell—
Declare who’s damned, pronounce who’s saved,
Like we command the winds God gave.
We shape our creeds with mortal hands,
Build justice on our shifting sands,
And dare to mark, in ink and flame,
The list of sin and saintly name.
Yet God, whose thoughts no man can trace,
Dwells far beyond our time and place.
He sees the heart, not just the deed,
He knows the wound beneath the greed.
The tyrant crowned in human eyes
May fall when naked truth replies;
The outcast scorned, the one denied,
May rise with angels at her side.
So hush the gavel, cease the claim—
We do not write the Book of Names.
For when the trumpet shakes the air,
We’ll find God’s judgment just—and rare.
Not bound by wrath, nor swayed by praise,
His love and wisdom thread all ways.
And both the thief and priest may stand
Astonished by the Master’s hand.
Let mercy rule your words today—
For God, not man, will have His say.
Epilogue
The veil was torn—not with a roar,
But silence I had not heard before.
No gavel fell, no sentence passed,
Just love that saw me to the last.
My shame rose up to speak its claim,
But He called softly—called my name.
And all I was, both false and true,
Was known—and still, He let me through.
The tyrant wept, the martyr sang,
The skeptic knelt, the bells all rang.
No thrones, no chains, no scales of gold—
Just open arms I dared to hold.
The ones I judged, the ones I mourned,
The ones I cursed, the ones I scorned—
Were there beside me, robed in grace,
Each bearing light upon their face.
This is no end, but now begun—
The morning of the Risen Son.
No longer blind, no longer small,
I see the Judge—
And He is all.