Where, Then, Is The Sting?

Oh death! Where is thy sting? 
Dread venom of lowest hell,
Brewed in the bitterness of hatred,
Where is thy sting,
Distilled from violence of rebellion,
Compounded of saddest separation?
This is death’s sting, and yet
Where, oh where, death, is thy sting?
 
Where does the sting incise,
Where pour out its poison,
Ghastly, grisly, doom-dealing, deadly?
In it the shame and pain of
Fruitless remorse, dull anguish,
Dry tongue cleaving, tears destroyed
In lethal cynicism, passion against God,
Rustlings of memories bringing horror,
And the incoming, ravaging darkness—
This is death’s sting.
Yet where, oh death, is thy sting?
 
How then the irrevocable loss
Of the holy, heavenly being—
Man brilliantly lit by God,
Pulsing in glory? How, where, is this loss?
Down in the mocking strata of death,
The leering, gaping grin of the grave,
The stench of corruption, glory-failure
And no-being in God. This is the sting.  
Yet, oh death, where, where is thy sting?
 
The sting is in him. Look up
(All ye that pass by). Look and see.
Do not let the divine drama pass over you,
Be over you, be gone. Look up!
 There, writhing with the sting. Oh yes,
Human enough to suffer and divine
Enough to bear. Look up and see,
All ye who pass by. See where death’s sting 
Was and is no more.
 
If a man stay and look, he will see.
If he pass by, then in a moment
He will pass by love, and will never see.
He will miss the miracle
Hid in the grim gallows. He will bypass
Love reaching out with cool arms
To embrace the sin-fevered.
He will pass by, not knowing
Where the sting has gone.  
  
Where is death’s sting? In him:
Annulled and made void: nothing.
Its poison absorbed, destroyed.
Death tried to conquer. This it could not.
This sting in man is death, fiery,
Anguish and flame of hell,
But in him—after the suffering—
Exploded myth of destruction.
In him the fire of death
Blazed to expending, and expended.
Then death, where is your sting?
 
Ask not, ‘Where is the deathly sting?’
For it is destroyed, absorbed into nothingness
By love’s holy power. Now
It is only life, life flowing,
Life in quality replete, surging up
Out of the empty tomb. Christ’s grave,
Empty through grace, is the wide room
Of man’s new spirit. Man is in life.
Man is enthroned in the heavens,
Having entered into his glory
Through man’s suffering. Man is high.
Gone then is death’s sting. 
Void in the victory—the ancient 
Annulled victory of the grave. 
Oh, death, where is thy sting?

From The Spirit of All Things, by Geoffrey Bingham, pp.90-92

Paul

Silly small man, feet pattering,
Feet scurrying across the world:
Small silly man with message
Small and silly as the little man.
 
How can the macrocosm fit,
Becoming a microcosm in the heart?
How can one humanity contain
The supernatural power?
  
Peer into the little man, little heart.
Withdraw perplexed—afraid:
Fear pouring out to timeless reaches
At the dynamic full contained.
 
Here is the dynamic held in little man—
Power’s explosive to shatter worlds
Of even smaller men, and make
A new cosmos—nuclear wine.
 
Down in the little container surges
Exploding power and vibrant thrust
Aimed at destroying larger men and nations:
At most—destroying the darker world.
 
Silly small man, feet pattering,
Fussing across the fearful foam:
Carrying a message in his beating bosom
To blow us all to Kingdom Come!
  
 
 

From The Spirit of All Things, by Geoffrey Bingham, pp. 44-45

David: Psalm 51

Thou requirest truth
In the inward parts:
Not merely on the lips,
Where man may mutter anything,
And seal his subterfuge,
Making it truth for him
And those who hear.
  
Thou requirest truth
When man is truly man:
Down in the depths beneath,
 Where You alone may see:
Man senses but he does not know
That truth is the truth
That You require.
  
I, David, was a man of joy,
Of pleasant power,
Of daily purity.
True, I too was tempted,
But should I fall
Would know I fell
And cry to You for help.
  
When then I fell
And said I did not fall,
When kept within
The hellish sin I did
And made it joy, not sin,
The fires began
That ran into my soul.
  
At nights they burned,
By day they flamed,
Hot coals that dried
Or sweated me
Until the power had gone,
That once I knew
In doubtless joy.
  
When Nathan came
His piercing eyes
Looked to the depths
(His eyes were Yours);
The holy flame
Burned even more.
I was undone.
  
The mercy cried
Was mercy come,
The lava fled
Its burning core,
And I was freed—
The flame was gone
By mercy’s love.
  
The truth required
In inward parts,
The purity
Within the heart
Have come again.
No greater gift
Was ever given.
  
Here then I weep
For grace and sin,
The wasted hour,
The splendid grace:
Both show me truth
Is what I need,
With wisdom.
  
Teach me, then, Lord,
Of sin’s deceit,
The sludge of sin
That full defiles.
Give me the love
Of purity,
The only truth.
  
Now sings my heart,
The heart so pure
The miracle of love
Has made again.
The man destroyed
Is made anew
For purity.
  
I know, dear Lord,
The cost is Yours.
Sin’s suffering
Is mine alone,
But Yours the pain
Messiah takes
Unto the death.
  
Broken I go,
Though healed.
Wisdom I know,
Though foolish.
You have unmasked
The sin that binds,
And set me free.
  
Freedom thus bought
Is freedom prized
And holiness
Is gift most high.
Man breathes eternity
In holiness
And knows You true.
  
This is the wisdom required: 
This is the gift of God 
Set in the inward parts, 
True purity in peace
And holiness in joy.

From The Spirit of All Things, by Geoffrey Bingham, pp.72-74

Propitiation

Who knows how deep the Cross
Save he who hung and died?
Who knows how deep the deep
Save he who into deep’s great depths
Descended?
Who knows how deep the Cross
Save he who let his life-blood flow,
Save he whose mystery is veiled?

Deep, deep; deep in the depths
The darkest wrath of God; its tide
Flowed on, flowed under, through,
Flowed over him, the deepest depth
That none can depth, save Christ,
Who went the deepest depth full down
To reach the other side
Of depthless holiness.
 
So deep the wrath: so deep, so deep,
Full down as God’s deep holiness.

Tide after tide; tide over tide;
Tide upon tide flowed over him;
The burning of the holiness, the wrath
That grips the sin upon him laid,
And holds and shears a burning swathe
Across the alien lonely waste
Of dark pollution;
Bears on it from the endless holy love,
Giving no breath for foulness dark to live
But bears it down to death,
To changeless death, the endless death,
The full annihilation.

Deep down to deep, to depths of death,
And reconciliation.

From The Spirit of All Things, by Geoffrey Bingham, pp. 64-65

Identification

In the dark reaches of Golgotha’s anguish,
His cold and nerveless hands—
Heavy with the pain of entire human sin,
And all cosmic evil (embracing all time)—
Reached out in a purposeful groping,
An attempted desire to reach,
Reach me, the lonesome, loathsome object
Of his insistent love.

In that moment I knew—in the moment of pain
And the high, wild cry—
I knew he had embraced me,
Become me wholly as I was in my dream,
In my ineluctable anger and hate,
With all the dark deceits of my heart.
 
Me he became, and he anguished
As the intolerable pollution spread
Across the pure reaches of his holy self,
Drawing there out of me
The evil that was mine alone.

In the soft silence of his tomb I lay,
One with him in the unconquerable peace,
And with him I rose
When the world dawned new,
And I was the new man.

From All Things of the Spirit, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, p. 1

So Much, Lord!

This hour I wake, O Lord,
Before the dawn awakens me,
Considering the years of my life
And the vast vista You have opened
To my astounded eyes.
So much, O Lord, You have revealed
Of temporal and eternal mysteries,
So wide a scope of all Your Being
And of Your Son, the King of Kings,
That I sink beneath its glorious weight
And, trembling with this knowledge,
Despair of coping with such wisdom.
This is too much for me.
Like Job of old Your metanoia comes
And makes me simple, humbles me
To live within the wonder of it all.
 
You know, dear Lord, the mystery
Has gripped me since my natal eyes
First saw this world of Yours—
This vast creation of Your heart and will—
And somehow sensed Your plan for it
And all Your Family. Expanding time
Encapsulates creative wisdom
That makes all things celestial and terrestrial
And places at the heart of it
Your own beloved elect, dear family
To occupy eternity as kings and priests,
To serve and worship for ever.
Within this quiet and solemn hour
I sense the amazing gift
Of all the truth my soul can take,
My mind can contemplate
And heart in trembling can receive.
The miser ponders day and night
The treasury that’s his. I ruminate
On things eternal but I do not fear
To lose such treasure as a miser might
Through fear and death’s despair.
 
Forgive me, Lord, the dreams I had
Of telling all to fellow man
And to the vast following
Of Father Adam. I surely thought
They must have pondered also in the womb
And in the newness of the natal day
The things of You, and of Your Son
And of the Spirit—Lord of life—
And Your deep holiness
That purifies the dross of soul
And gives us eyes to see You whole
And face you in this misery
That we have made through sin,
Through primal spurning of Your gifts
And splendid glory innate made
To fit us for eternity.
 
Slow comes the dawn to me
Who restless am with all this truth.
I know a fragment of Your pain
As You reveal Yourself to us
Who will to only dimly see
And scarcely bear to hear
Celestial worship in the holy sphere
And do not care
To glimpse a sight of Thee.
My heart bows down to you
In given gratitude for sight bestowed
And love made known
As boundless mystery.

From All Things of the Spirit, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, pp. 138-9

Laurel

You are my only love. 

You are closer than all others— 

All others whom I love, 

And those who love me. 

Whence came this love? 

It was born of you 

In your love for me. 

Yet beyond even you 

It came from Him 

Who is love Himself.

He, too, has a Bride. 

I meant to say 

I, too, have a Bride. 

For He has always had His Bride 

Before even the world began. 

Time was not with Him.
In His heart 

She was born to Him 

Who for her sake 

Became Man, and lived, 

And living, died. 

His full love for her 

Won her wondering heart 

On Calvary’s hill.

I am in Him 

And He in me. 

I, with all others, 

Am also His Bride, 

But this He did for me, 

He gave me His Bridegroom’s love 

To love you for ever. 

To love you where my mind, 

Lost in its loveless ego, 

Loved me more than others.

I, too, have been to Calvary,
First to curse and then to kiss. 

His love destroyed the ego, 

Bringing it to life again
As the new self, lost in Him. 

Else I had never loved you 

With ought but ego love, 

Seeking you for myself
And not for you.

Each day His Calvary love kills 

Old ego that would rise. 

Each day His pristine love 

Repristinates my own
Until I love afresh 

With Calvary love— 

God’s agape that grows 

Beyond romantic love
Which hides Man’s ego love: 

So does His love 

Love you, through me.

This love’s a mystery. 

Daily the Marriage Feast 

Draws nearer in our time, 

But in our time delights to be 

As it one day will be 

In time’s full time. 

Now in our love the Feast is here 

And you love me 

As I love you 

With Calvary Bridal love. 

And ever will.

From All Things of the Spirit, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, pp. 152-4

I Died: I Died

I dreamt I died that night, 

And all my grief 

Full coincided with His own. 

The thought, of course, is madness. 

One drop of His would
More than destroy 

All that I have and am, 

And render me beyond the pale 

Of reconstruction.
 

Of course, I died, 

And that’s the whole 

Of all I knew. Full grief 

Took me to depths 

From which is no recall. 

In the annihilation 

That grief Divine brings 

To a human being 

Is irreversible decease. 

A man cannot enter the Divine 

And feel His grief. 

Holiness is His love 

And not a man’s.

True God feels grief 

From His own holiness, 

But from it man feels death.
 

And so I died. 

I died down to my depths, 

Disintegrating 

In the welter of the Love 

That, lone, knows grief; 

Not universal grief, 

Not grief en masse, 

But holy grief of love 

In intimacy with each 

Of whom it made, 

For that gone dark 

Within the essence of itself.
 

I cannot tell the death— 

It was a long and depthful sleep— 

And when I woke I lived. 

I had been dead before I died 

But dying in His grief 

Did not destroy. The grief 

Destroyed the pain 

In all my filaments and fibres, 

And every granule wholly purged 

Rose to a coruscation 

Of sheer upholiness. 

His multi-coloured joyfulness 

Surged through my resurrection— 

Such coruscation!
 

I did not long to sleep again, 

To die, to live again, 

To know fresh grief. 

I said my grief full coincided 

With all His own. I know not. 

I only knew the grief of love 

Purifies from death. I died, 

And now I live again
Who never lived in truth 

Before.



From All Things of the Spirit, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, pp. 154-5

Lord, You Are My Love

Lord, You are my love,

You alone I love, and all my loves

Are in the loving of You. Yet You

Came first in your love; In Your

Mysterious predestining, fixing my life,

Planning my destiny before the world began.

 

You are my love and when I wake—

Time and again in the many nights—

There is sometimes the faint line of dread,

Sometimes the inner terror of the Holy One,

And I fear lest I have offended You.

Then Your love comes—reassuring—

And in Your word, and on my knees,

And in the secret places

Of my secret heart, there is a tryst—

A man and God affair

Of love inexpressible. I weep

And seem to hear You too,

Not weeping as I, but with me, for me,

And the pain becomes a precious pain,

A rich suffering in joy,

And I am one with You.

Oh Triune Lover, persistent One

Who never leaves me night and day

But moves within my dreams, and lives within

My daily awakenings, hear of my love.

More than faint intimations

Are the visitations and the ‘never-leavings’

That I have known these years of all my life.

Sometimes my thoughts of leaving You grow strong

And with the thought bewilderment fast grows,

And, like the Psalmist, in my heart I cry,

‘Whither, Lord, shall I go from Thy presence?

Thou art not only the Eternal One

Being the Everywhere I’d go, but of Thee

And from Thee, I am what Thou have made me.

Separation intolerable

My inner spirit dreads.

Such loneliness apart from Thee

Is more than Hell itself, yet Hell’s substance

That void the rebellious know’.

Why in this night—this early morn—

Do I speak to You, speak thus?

Why does this moan escape my lips?

Why does my heart complain

When all You’ve ever shown

Is holy love to me? Ah, yes,

The rub lies there, the hurt, the pain,

That You are holy, You are pure,

And I am not. Strange truth and fact

That though You holy be and I am not

Your love enwraps my soul and spirit

Like a protecting mantle, a healing cloak

That cleanses as it loves, loves as it purifies

And makes me one with You,

Your inner heart to mine and mine to You.

This is the mystery—the pained alternation

Of love and fear, of fear and love—

The mystery that’s my life

From when conceived until this now

And ‘til the death that’s life

Releases me from pain and joy

Of the present mingling.

The present mingling is the grace

And love that I and God are one.

This is the dread that comes to me—the commingling

Of human flesh and Your dread Deity

Catching me up to all eternity

In a resistless love. Why then

Do I moan in the deep night

At the painful delight of present union,

Future joy and ecstasy—not Dionysian but pure

As love makes serene for ever?

Why should my heart complain

Except its shame should make me long

For the Then to be Now—the Then I dread

As now I dread, and yet adore?

Ah Lord! I love You deep,

Deeper than all my secret heart,

Deeper than Heaven and Hell themselves.

Your love once captured me

Even before I saw the Tree:

But all the time the Tree was there

With You, in You, for me, for them.

One word from You is spoken not

But in the Cross, and by the Cross,

And through the Cross, and from its self

Till Christ in all his love—

And Spirit-love along—

Ushers my trembling heart to You

Till all Your Fatherhood Embraces me for ever.

Dear Lord there’s no complaint,

Only the plaint gentle, the tender plea

That I may tell with power You give,

The everlasting love—the mercy full—

That lifts to love’s most holy height

And there retains for ever

The transformed spirit.

Lord, I plead,

Never release me from the noble call,

That dignity most high—that ministry

That makes the heart of me melt to be

One with Your love forever;

One as I tell Your love, in quivering tones

From depths that measure cannot know,

Your depthless, breadthless, heightless love

That captures me for ever,

And in its capture captures all

Its utter holiness had planned

For time and all eternity.

From All Things of the Spirit, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, p.97-99.

Where Lay His Head?

Safe in their nests the snuggling birds, 

Deep in its lair, protected in its hole, 

The fox cub often hunts, or hunted is; 

But on the broad face of his own created earth 

Christ roams without a place to lay his head.

 
To lay his head?! But Martha’s house was his, 

And Peter’s, too, and others loved him fair. 

How say we then he has no lair, no nest, 

No place secure, no love from friends?
He walked on earth as love embodied!
 

They loved with passionate love who lived so close, 

Who heard the rich voice cry out the truth 

And saw the dear body break and bleed 

On the cross of cruel strain; they loved
Until their hearts of pain wept tears.

And yet it’s true—the cruelty of men 

Bound in Adamic hate and fear, they cannot cry 

‘Come gracious Lord and dwell in me!’ 

They turn upon their lusts of life 

And spurn the Holy One who loves.
 

I, too, know somewhat of the fear. 

I know the rejection of the words I speak, 

And in my nightly dreams I feel 

The sadness of the hostile hearts 

That scorn the love I long to give.
  

This is the fellowship of ours, 

The walking in the lonely place with him, 

But yet secure in compassionate pain, 

Knowing rejection does not condemn

But helps to make me one with him.


From All Things of the Spirit, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, p.79-80.