Classic Poem

Have I been so long time with you, and yet you do not know me
Whose feet you washed, whose bread you broke upon the eager hill,
Was I so unlike the Bridegroom who you said would come in glory
That you wait, and never wonder how my hand is on you still?

You bow the knee, you sip the wine, you breathe my name before me,
You say I called the dead to life, but slept upon a stone—
Have I been so long time with you, and yet you do not know me
Because I laughed and loved you and bade you walk alone?

If I had faith to meet with death and wrest all terror from him
To prove how far a man may walk who knows from whence he came,
Do you think the spear could slay my soul or that the tomb could hold me
Or that I would not come to those who call upon my name?

I bide my time, I keep my peace, I bind, I loose, I winnow,
I bear no wounds as witnesses in hands and feet and side;
I wear instead upon my brow the thorns of your complacence,
And through earth's generations my heart is crucified.

If you were brave, if you were kind, if you had faith sufficient,
If you believed the things you say, and died to make them true,
I should not need to come again returning and returning
Through all the lonely centuries and Golgothas for you.

Yet I am He whom seas obey, who take the wings of morning,
Whose feet are on the mountain peaks, whose messenger a star—
Have I been so long time with you and yet you do not know me,
The living God who walks beside and loves you as you are?