Easter Sunday – A Poem by Rowe Williams

The building I am in
doesn't look like anything special.
It's part of a small business complex,
once modern but now dated.
Stuccoed in a color that might
be called salmon on the outside.

The inside of this building matches the outside.
Not in color, but in feel. The rooms
are nice, reminiscent of that first decade
of the twenty-first century, somehow
apparent despite that era's lack
of identity.

At the heart of this building
is the sanctuary. At the front, a two-level dais
serves as a stage, the centerpiece
a perhaps three quarters real size
cross, draped in accusing red cloth.

Rows of tan chairs, the kind
that attach with hooks to one another's legs,
face this stage expectantly,
as do the people within them.

On the stage stands a man
of conviction. He sways
passionately behind the podium
that tells him where to stand.
Charisma, tracing its way back thousands
of years, all the way to its originator Christ
Jesus himself, pours from his mouth, radiates
from his face.

This ordinary building, unadorned, inconspicuous,
has changed lives. People have come in
and been remade. This building houses
a religion, an industry, a meaning built
on resurrection.