This is one of the first songs I ever wrote, with a very simple haunting guitar accompaniment (stretching my very poor guitar skills to the limit). I was sure I had it written down somewhere but couldn’t find it, so have reconstructed it from what I remember. It is about Good Friday, which is today. If I can get them finished in time, I hope to have a poem about Easter Saturday up tomorrow, and one about Easter Sunday the day after, we’ll see how that goes.

Different Eyes

As the crowd all shouted for his death,
As the guards tried to beat out his last breath,
As that ugly crown of thorns pierced his head,
The Pharisees looked at his suffering and pain and they laughed.

But He looked back at them with different eyes,
Filled with love that speaks of sacrifice.
And underneath those burning skies
He said, ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do.’

Weakened and bleeding, they forced him up that deadly slope
With a load so great his tortured body couldn’t cope.
The crowds spat and jeered at the one who was their hope.
The chief priests witnessed his anguish and shame and they laughed.

But He looked back at them with different eyes,
Filled with love that speaks of sacrifice.
And underneath those barren skies
He said, ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do.’

The weight of a sinful world filled His heart with grief.
They nailed him up and on either side they hung a thief.
One cried ‘Save yourself and us, give us relief!’
The other, ‘This man has done no wrong, Lord remember me.’

And He looked back at him with different eyes,
Filled with love that speaks of sacrifice.
And underneath those darkening skies
He said, ‘You will be with me in Paradise.’

And yet even today we crucify Him still,
With our violence and lies that go so much against his will,
All the lives we destroy, the innocent blood that we spill.
We briefly glance at his offer of life and we laugh.

But He looks back at us with different eyes,
Filled with love that speaks of sacrifice.
And even in these evil times
He says, ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do.’