That was the first thought.
It was not meant to be a poem. It was not even meant to be a complete sentence. It was simply a thought that settled deep in my heart.
Because when I look through Scripture, I see something that should humble every one of us.
The people Jesus reached were not always the people religion expected.
The thief hanging beside Him on the cross was not a man anyone would have chosen. He had no time left to prove himself. No time to clean up his past. No time to rebuild his reputation.
He had only a broken heart and a desperate plea.
And Jesus saw him.
Religion would have seen a criminal.
Christ saw someone worth dying for.
That thought became the first stone in the foundation of this poem.
Religion Sees the Sin. Christ Sees the Soul.
The next thought came from something I have wrestled with in my own life.
How often do we look at people and only see what is broken?
We see the addiction.
We see the failure.
We see the anger.
We see the mistakes.
We see the scars.
And sometimes we even do it to ourselves.
We look in the mirror and only see the person we used to be.
But Christ does something different.
He looks deeper.
Religion saw a sinner.
A scar.
A stain.
A shame.
It counted every broken piece.
But it never knew the Name.
Because religion often measures a person by where they have been.
Grace sees where God is taking them.
I Had to Put Myself in the Poem
At some point, this poem could not just be about the thief, the outcast, or the man among the tombs.
Because if I am honest...
I am in the poem too.
I was broken.
I was undone.
I had my own darkness.
I had my own failures.
I had my own moments where I was far away from the person God created me to be.
It is easy to write about "those people."
The ones society rejects.
The ones everyone else labels.
But the Gospel becomes real when we finally admit:
"I was one of them."
I was the one who needed mercy.
I was the one who needed a Savior.
I was the one who had nothing to offer God except my brokenness.
And that is where the poem changed.
It stopped being about them.
It became about us.
The Man Among the Tombs
One of the darkest images in Scripture is the man living among the tombs.
Everyone else saw a problem.
They saw someone dangerous.
They saw someone beyond hope.
They saw chains.
But Jesus saw something nobody else saw.
He saw a person.
It only saw a naked man;
God saw a heart He came to claim.
Because that is the difference between human judgment and divine mercy.
People saw what sin had done.
Christ saw what redemption could restore.
People saw the chains.
Christ saw the soul.
The Ones Religion Cast Away
The longer I thought about this, the more I realized how often Scripture is filled with people religion overlooked.
The woman with the broken past.
The tax collector hated by society.
The persecutor who became an apostle.
The thief who entered Paradise before anyone thought he deserved it.
The broken.
The forgotten.
The ones everyone else had already written off.
But Heaven tells a different story.
Because God does not collect perfect people.
He rescues broken ones.
The Final Thought
The poem began with this question:
Who are the people we have decided are too far gone?
Because the frightening truth is that sometimes the people religion misses are the very people Christ came to find.
The world says:
"Too broken."
Christ says:
"Mine."
The world says:
"Too sinful."
Christ says:
"I paid for that."
The world says:
"There is no hope."
Christ says:
"I am the resurrection and the life."
The thief.
The sinner.
The lost.
The one too far gone.
The one who has nothing left to bring.
The ones religion missed...
were never missed by Christ.
Because He did not come for those who believed they were already whole.
He came for the broken.
He came for the wounded.
He came for the ones sitting in darkness.
He came to seek and save the lost.
And that is how a simple thought became a poem:
Religion saw a sinner.
But Christ saw someone worth dying for.
The Ones Religion Missed:
Religion saw a sinner,
a scar, a stain, a shame.
It carved his sins in marble stone
and cursed him by his name.
It counted every broken piece,
each failure, every fall.
But never heard the whispering Voice
that came to claim them all.
It saw the thief at Calvary,
a soul beyond repair.
A dying man with empty hands,
a final breath of prayer.
But Christ looked past the crimson wounds,
past guilt, and grief, and blame.
He saw a soul worth dying for—
and mercy called his name.
It saw a man among the tombs,
where shadows made their bed.
With chains wrapped tightly round his flesh,
and madness in his head.
It only saw a naked man;
a broken, wretched frame.
God saw a heart He came to claim,
and whispered back his name.
It saw the tears of broken souls,
the failures and the fall.
It turned away from shattered lives,
from those who had nothing at all.
But Christ saw more than ashes,
more than the wounds they bore.
He saw the image of His grace
beneath the dust and gore.
Religion missed the wounded,
the ones it cast away.
But Heaven keeps the ashes
of those grace called that day.
The thief.
The sinner.
The lost.
The one too far gone.
The ones the world abandoned,
the ones who had no song.
The ones religion missed...
Were never missed by Christ.
For He entered their darkness,
He carried their shame,
He bore their cross,
He conquered their grave.
And the ones religion missed...
Christ died to bring them home.
``jhf
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