Shaul the Pharisee you were:
Appalled by Messianic stir
Proclaiming Yeshu "Son of Man",
Who soon would come with master plan
To rule the world on God's behalf
And with his friends sort wheat from chaff.

Though sure that God could fix it all,
You felt He wouldn't "Christ" install;
And yet the man had loved the Lord,
Endorsed the ploughshare not the sword.
This caused a crisis in your soul
When persecution was your goal.

Then suddenly, I must propose,
Inside your mind the "Self" arose;
The form it took and you projected
Was him whose dream you had rejected.
And so you were the first who said
That "Christ"had risen from the dead.

By "Self" I mean the very core
Within the psyche - thus the door
Through which the Lord reveals to man
His wholeness and that master plan
Those fellows thought was still above,
Concerning justice, truth and love.

No sooner than it had been born
This outward image had withdrawn;
Thenceforth, as you in print impart,
"Christ" dwelt within the faithful heart.
Posthaste you carried the Good News
To James' group, and changed its views

You too, it seems, surrendered ground,
For in your works the hope is found
That "Christ" in flesh would come again -
Though God alone could know just when.
A great conflation! this is how
The Church itself survived till now.

As to the "lie" those other saw
The "risen Christ" (indeed before
Yourself), this was the only way
The Church her message could convey
To those devoted to the prior
Notions of God and His Messiah.

Besides, before the rule of Science
And man's one-sided, blind reliance
Upon"objective", sequent form,
Poetic license was the norm.
Myself, I'm grateful that you durst'
Change first with last and last with first.

Thus the apocalyptic trend,
Which sanctions Earth's horrific end,
That in the Christian Myth's enclosed
Is by your balanced thought exposed,
Enabling folk to stay the course
In God's dear world, still marred by force.

Now here's another thought of mine:
We Faith itself must redefine;
Instead of blind obedience,
Let's term its sire experience -
For when, within, one gets the call
One knows that God is all in all.

Michael Peach
Jerusalem, Israel
16 May, 1998