Representative of Humanity

Gaunt figure, gentle savior of man,

We huddle in the trenches of your

Furrowed brow where you hold us

Like a thought you can’t let go of.

“Ecce homo,” you seem to say

With your face devoid of deceit,

With your eyes that see what was,

What is, and that which is yet to come.

Your lips that clothed the Logos in human

Sounds praise not the kind, nor do they

Condemn the violent, but preach silence.  

Crimson flames of passion never

Tinged your cheeks so lean and pale,

Nor did your wiry hands ever had

Reason to cover them in shame.

You’re holding heaven and hell apart,

So we may grow like trees, our roots

Seeking the depths of deathly darkness,

Our limbs reaching for the light that pours

From the windows of your Father’s house

On high, past the false glimmer of illusion,

Fantasy, past all of crucified human agony.

Author's Note

The Representative of Humanity is a nine meters high wooden sculpture created by Rudolf Steiner between 1917 and 1925 in a collaboration with Edith Maryon. It was placed in a central place in the first Goetheanum, was saved from the fire when the Goetheanum was destroyed by arson, and is now placed in the second Goetheanum. It depicts the Christ in a human representation, as the representative of Man, in its battle between Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences represented by Ahriman in the cave and Lucifer on top.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

"what if God was one of us, a slob like one of us" (Joan Osborne)

I quite like how you interwove this passage with allusions to Jesus but the human side of it all.
j.

[Laz K.]

thanks, j.