Poem – Mercy Triumphs

Hey there! I’m writing this blog post from a 150 year old stone house in the rolling countryside of Pescara, Italy, where me and my family are just about to finish off our holiday. It’s been a grand few weeks travelling Europe – but alas, all good things must come to an end. I have 6 weeks left of my Senior year once I get home, and it’s going to be pretty much jumping straight into the deep end of crazy-busy-life upon our return. But let’s not think about that right now. The sun is shining, the pool is calling, and I have poetry to share! 😀

So the poem I’m sharing today is both a NaPoWriMo poem and a Biblical poem. Fun fact: I wrote it at about 12 a.m. in an apartment in Prague with siblings sleeping all around me. It’s funny how certain writing locations become burned in your memory. 😀 Anyways, it’s based on the woman whose story is found in John 8. Her story is such a beautifully broken one, and it really impacted me as I wrote this poem…  I hope it impacts you too. So without further ado, here it is – Mercy Triumphs. 

~

Nightmares of stones and screams chase me as I am dragged

Like a common criminal through the early morning streets.

 

I should’ve known better – in fact I did know better…

Hadn’t I been taught ever since I could remember

The role of a woman under the law?

Chaste and quiet and pure and holy before a God I feared,

A God that I could not know unless – unless what?

I don’t know how to know this God…

 

All I know is how to act and dress and be –

And this, I have defiled…

Defiled in a single maddened moment of desire for something more

Than these winding streets and empty days.

I should’ve known that my desire would be my downfall

But I was too far gone before I knew it and he – he was

Something more than I had ever known.

But the morning dawned and with it a shame I had never known before

 

And now I am being dragged through these winding streets

My heart pounding with fear –

I know what they do to women like me.

 

Somehow I am pulled into the temple courts,

The very dwelling place of this God that demands that I

Keep the law – His law that I have blatantly broken.

People stream around me and surround me until I feel

That I will suffocate under the weight of their stares that strip me

Down to my aching, empty soul.

Their whispers turn into a murmur that swells into shout

Of accusation and anger.

I am dragged on a wave of shame by these people

Who do not know me, nor care for anything

But their law that demands so much.

What do they see?

A common whore – a woman with no moral standing,

A failure in the eyes of the law, and thus the God

Under whose judgment I stand.

 

And then the roar of accusation grows silent

As in one swift motion I am thrown before a man.

My body barely covered, I cower,

Surrounded by my accusers, huddled in front of –

My judge?

The man who is to judge me in the eyes of God and His law?

I draw my shame like a blanket around me and sit silent

Waiting for the verdict to be pronounced,

Waiting for the stones.

 

Instead of the shouts of accusation that I expect

I hear a tersely spoken interchange between this crowd of my condemners

And the man that stands in front of them and me.

Slowly I begin to wonder, and then to realize that I

Am only a pawn, being used in a game of cat-and-mouse

Between these law-followers and this man.

 

“The law commands us to stone her,”

I can hear the disdain in their voices,

Feel the disgust in their glances as they gesture to me

“But what would you say?”

In the silence that follows I can feel the question like a knife in my back

Piercing me to the very quick –

So this man will be my judge.

But the volley of judgment that I expect never comes…

Instead he stoops and writes silently in the dust.

 

Looking up he catches my trembling glance

And in a second I am stripped of all shame –

Left a simply a woman, broken and wounded

In desperate need of grace.

In that moment I send up a silent prayer to the God

I long to know but do not know how to find.

Have mercy on me, a sinner….

 

The silence is broken by his voice

As he stands to face my accusers, his eyes flashing

“The one who has never sinned –

Let him be the first one to throw a stone at this woman.”

His words hang in the stunned silence,

I hardly dare to breathe.

Could this really be happening?

How can this man look at me – look at my blatant shame

And say that?

 

I hear the shuffling of feet

The nervous clearing of a throat.

And then –

Nothing.

Nothing but the swishing of robes and the

Ring of retreating footsteps in this judgement court.

I look at my judge and find instead

My Saviour.

Standing before me, he stoops and lifts me from the ground –

A gesture of grace so simple it takes my breath away.

“Where are those that condemn you?”

He asks, looking at me again – past my shame and sin

Deep into my desperate heart.

“Do they not condemn you?”

A quick shake of my head and he pronounces my verdict

“Then neither do I condemn you.”

 

No condemnation…

I stand in this temple court with God as my judge and find

That mercy triumphs over judgment.

This man is something more than I have ever known –

He has given me grace over law

And with it the glorious certainty that I can

Know God.

Perhaps He is closer than I ever could’ve dreamed…

~

So what do you think? Have you been impacted by any Biblical characters’ stories recently? I’d love to chat in the comments with you!