LEVITICUS: Who Can Ascend?

You see the blood soaking my hands

As I'm gently leading a lamb

I cannot draw near to you without a cost

But once intimacy didn't have a price

The greatest romance was Yours and mine

I was made to be lover of the Uncreated

 

But that love of novelty severed by desire

I became kindling to His consuming fire

Yet if I lose the Lover, I lose my own humanity

 

Up His mountain now who can ascend?

Any return is the muse of all laments

Who can dwell with fire and not be consumed?

 

The heart of the Lover still longing for me

Let an unmarred lamb bear the penalty

I shudder every time I have to cut another throat

 

Only the unblemished to the altar's hearth

What I present presents my own heart

There is no approach to life without death

 

This substitute holds me upright

As I lean on it with my entire life

Sobered that it wasn't me who had to die

 

Up this mountain who can ascend?

Only the offer of total abandon

Can the lamb lead me back from exile?

 

It cuts the throat of my soul

As the lamb is poured out over and over

Because my death isn't worthy of the grave

 

As the blood trickles down the side

The altar's holiness becomes mine

I'll never depart from the hearth and fire

 

It pierces to know you already knew

That I would kill more than just you

The road is marked with graves

 

But the unbearable cost is never loss

What is gained is all I've ever wanted

The return to gaze on His beauty always

 

The lamb I had to lead you became

So I can now ascend to your gates

To the summit of atonement

 

So let this sacrifice be just as costly

As the only Lamb who is found worthy

Let this death show my willingness to die

 

But can I even call it a sacrifice?

I'm just giving back what is already His

As I burn. may I ascend to Him

As I burn, may I ascend to Him