“I Was There at the Border” – Christ’s Lament

I was there
at the border,
barefoot in the dust,
my robe torn by razor wire,
my name forgotten in the paperwork.

They didn’t recognize me.
Not with their flags waving
or their uniforms pressed,
not with their boots stomping
or their hands gripping steel.

I cried out
“Let the children come to me!”
But they took them instead,
ripped from brown-skinned mothers
whose lullabies could not stop the sound
of a slamming cell door.

They didn’t see the cross on my back
when they chained me to the ground.
Didn’t hear my voice
when they shouted,
“Illegal. Alien. Invasion.”
I wept in the shadows of cages
built with tax and silence.

I am the one they call “the least.”
But I am also the Word,
the Lamb,
the Lord they claim on Sundays.

I bled in the desert
beside a boy too weak to cry.
I knelt beside a pregnant woman
who drank from a toilet.
I stood unarmed
as Marines surrounded me
with rifles and orders
and hearts too closed to tremble.

Oh America
you baptize your bombs
and dress your hatred in law,
but where is your soul?
Who taught you
to trade your birthright for borders,
your Gospel for guns?

You sing “Amazing Grace”
while I sit in detention,
praying
for someone to remember
that love is a verb
not a visa.

I am calling out
from the bus stop
where no one shows up.
From the courtroom
where no mercy is spoken.
From the sea
where bodies float unnamed
beneath your cruise ships
and denial.

This is not justice.
This is crucifixion.

And you
who feed on fear and call it freedom,
do you not see
you are arresting Me?

I am your Christ,
not your mascot.
I did not come to uphold your empire,
but to break it
with bread,
with wounds,
with truth too bright for cages.

Oh my beloved
I am still with you.
But will you be with Me?

Or will you
hand Me over
again?

Selah.