Triptych of the Lamb - House of Bread

The Triptych of the Lamb
Christopher Bogart

“And with His stripes we are healed.”
Isaiah 53:5

House of Bread

“He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon Him.”
Isaiah 53:3-5

He is a man despised.
His mottled tan is dirt and grime,
No time or place to wash his face,
He squats over sewer caps and hopes to bathe in warming steam,
His dreams lie deep within the seams of his tattered coat.

He is the rejected lady of many paper bags,
Filled with abandoned treasures stuffed between their
Knotted handles. She roams the streets, her bags in hand.
She seeks a bench to spend the night. She dreams
Of lighter loads, less cold tomorrows.

Despised by his father, awash in drugs and alcohol,
Rejected by his mother, uninterested in what her womb has borne,
His hands flail empty air, in a vain attempt to grasp
For love in a world gone cold. His soul,
Like fingers through his matted hair,
Is wracked with thoughts of loathing and despair.
He is the teenage boy, Emanuel.
His body sits on the cold concrete
Of an abandoned alleyway. His only toy,
The needle he will stick into his forearm.
His only blanket, the cold silver stars of a deep black night.

He is the Promised One.
The Son of all the hopes we have
For our redemption. And yet,
We turn our head in thinly veiled disgust
When he is thrust into our sight.
His body bears the bites of the cold angels
Of our indifference.

Why do we fail to see that he’s in pain,
And naked, right before our very eyes?
We should be sheltering him.
He should be fed
To still the hunger he has for our love,
For he was born and bred
Right here on earth,
Yet suffers still
Within this house of Bread.