The Man, the Myth, the Legend?

In the brushstrokes of these stanzas
Who’s mysterious face is painted?
A hero from Bonanza? Or
Some lunatic, now sainted?

A genius sporting Nobel Prize?
A man you’d try, and cry, to meet?
A myth whose magic never dies?
A legend whispered in the street?
Or One whose mocked so-seemed defeat…
Unlocked the skies?

The “Man”…

A so-called “prophet” with the goal
Of bringing princedoms peace?
Or…
The “Prince of Peace”; the end and goal
Of every prophet’s call?

A “judge not” kind of man who preached
That mercy is one way to heaven?
Or…
The Way to heaven’s mercy, and
Of every man, the Judge?

A nice guy flaunting Roman rule
Who failed to get his point across?
(Yet….
The bloodied cross and nail–point cruel
Weren’t Roman gifts to “nice guys”)

The “Myth”…

A myth fulfilling Marxist fears
As “opium of the masses”?
Or…
The Master of all hopes and fears
Fulfilling ancient myths? (3)

Is “Christ” that cry for wounds of flesh?
For close-calls, a good curse word?
Or…
The Word made “curse” to save us through
His fleshwounds and His cries? (1)

The “Legend”…

A lie or ploy of early Jews
A ruse to gain a name and glory?
Or…
The glorious Name for love of which
Converted Jews, with joy, would die? (2)

A teacher-sage on life and death
Who shared surprising truths?
Or…
The Truth, Whose death-to-life surprise
Redeems, revives and teaches?

The King…

A would-be king expounding love
And light, like countless others?
Or…
An otherworldly King of Light
Whose subjects’ mirrored love…
Enlightens…
Expands…
And expounds…
His here-but-not-yet Kingdom?
*****
(1) St. Paul: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13)

(2) St. Leo the Great: “‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ Is it possible to offer, or even to imagine, a purer kind of prayer than that which shows mercy to one’s torturers by making intercession for them? It was thanks to this kind of prayer that the frenzied persecutors who shed the blood of our Redeemer drank it afterward in faith and proclaimed him to be the Son of God.” (From the Moral Reflections on Job)
(3) Tolkien, Mythopoeia;

CS Lewis: “Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call ‘real things’. Therefore it is true, not in the sense of being a ‘description’ of God (that no finite mind could take in) but in the sense of being the way in which God chooses to (or can) appear to our faculties. The ‘doctrines’ we get out of the true myth are of course less true: they are the translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Does this amount to a belief in Christianity? At any rate I am now certain (a) That this Christian story is to be approached, in a sense, as I approach other myths. (b) That it is the most important and full of meaning. I am also nearly certain that it really happened….” (letter to Arthur Greeves: from The Kilns [on his conversion to Christianity], 18 October 1931)