A dozen empty chairs, and one vacated

Just as they'd celebrated memory's feast

Recalling a wandering peoples' desert ways:

Idolatry and broken covenant,

Self-seeking treachery for lustful gain

In ladder-climbing's graduated state.

The twelve, a microcosm of all who've been,

Are now, and generations yet to come,

Who find their way in struggling with themselves,

Longing for peace in life's elusive quest.

We take our place, inheritors of strife

Meeting around the table of our love

To find our risen Lord, the servant king,

Transforming tension into corporate power.

Easter

April 1985

  The Last Supper by Jacopo Bassano 1542 - by courtesy:  Free Christ Images