Behind the Poem: Spiritual Irony

[Joseph J. Breunig 3rd]

Now that people are becoming more aware of my poetic efforts, interests are being expressed regarding the background of my poetry - in addition, to my spiritual muse. In this installment, I briefly look at the crucifixion of Christ - an event central to the core beliefs of Christianity. This poem was composed in February 2007, in anticipation of that year's celebration of Resurrection Sunday (Easter).

If I were relegated to a single television channel, it would be the "History Channel". It's amazing to witness the variety of programming on this one station; I love the many shows presented, especially "The Building of an Empire" series. Learning about the struggles of mankind, whether against people, weather or circumstance, is truly fascinating to me. Seeing ideas and concepts from the Egyptian and Roman empires really touch my spirit, having causally learned about them throughout "The Word" in various Bible pasages. To see the re-eanactments of cultures, coupled with their accomplishments and reasonings, creates "paradigm shifts" in my thinking and increases my ability to learn and retain new information.

At a young age, I taught myself to recognize lessons from others' experiences, which can be categorized as: good, bad or neutral. We all know that life can be hard; however, times during the Roman civilization was outright brutal. The Persians were the first group of people to practice crucifixion, a torture methodology improved upon by the Romans, after learning about it from the Carthaginians. Part of the Roman culture was the ideal of efficiency. Although they are notorious for their bloodsport, as witnessed by the cruelty displayed in the games of the Coliseum, the Romans were in the business of building an empire. However, in order to support their culture, they needed and wanted productive citizens. After all, productive citizens can be taxed and the money is then used for constructing the infrastructures required to support society (in general). So the Roman government used the cruelest method of torture available for one simple reason - to stop and prevent crime against its citizenry.

In the Word, we are instructed that the ways of Jehovah 'are higher than our ways'. With God's ability to transcend time and His wisdom surpassing the knowledge of our own revelations, we will always be behind Him in our understanding of this World. Meanwhile the preaching of The Cross is considered to be foolishness by those who reject the gift of Salvation. However, given the current explosion of earthly knowledge, it's interesting to look back at history with understanding recently achieved. [Please note: I'm not going into the gory details of crucifixion; others have provided more qualified details on this subject. Nor will I focus on who killed Him. So, it's "safe" to continue reading...]

One of the facts regarding the human body, is that we each (on average) contain eight pints of blood. The number eight has a spiritual significance, in that it represents the concept of "new beginnings", as first seen in Noah's ark. [Eight people were present - Noah, three sons and their four wives.] Also modern studies about crucifixion have shown that part of the stress the body endures is that the heart literally "breaks apart". So from my spiritual perspective, the death of Christ on the Cross is truly representative of a holy sacrifice, whereby the shedding of His innocent blood fully implies that a "new beginning" between God and Man has been initiated. In effect, Christ was the Earth's first blood donor when he was crucified - for He was wounded for the World's transgressions. His dying from a broken heart re-enforces the idea of God's continuing Love towards us, for Christ willingly and freely accepted His role to die on our behalf - in the worst possible way (known to mankind at that time). Concentrating on these concepts allowed me to create this effective poem, while I envisioned the irony of this one event (from heaven's perspective).