The Battles of Advent
Preceding ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’
The battle raged:
The snake in the garden,
The first murder,
The lies, deceit
And betrayal.
The Old Covenant sad stories
Reveal
The real struggle.
When David stood before Goliath
The real fight
Was in the heavenlies.
When David lusted after Bathsheba
The battle raged in places
Far beyond earth.
When the second Adam
Was nailed to a tree,
The Romans and Sanhedrin
Were not masters
But slaves.
When Christ arose,
The false Prince lost.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
Haloes,
The sun’s brightest rays,
The seductive gleam of gold
Or the rich sparkle of diamonds
Are muted and dim
In the radiance of Your glory!
We often think of “In the Bleak Mid-Winter” when we think of Christina Rossetti’s Christmas poems. In fact she wrote many others. The following was written years before “In the Bleak Mid-Winter”.
Before the paling of the stars,
Before the winter morn,
Before the earliest cockcrow
Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable,
Cradled in a manger,
In the world His Hands had made
Born a Stranger.
Priest and King lay fast asleep
In Jerusalem,
Young and old lay fast asleep
In crowded Bethlehem:
Saint and Angel, Ox and Ass,
Kept a watch together,
Before the Christmas daybreak
In the winter weather.
Jesus on His Mother’s breast
In the stable cold,
Spotless Lamb of God was He,
Shepherd of the Fold:
Let us kneel with Mary Maid,
With Joseph bent and hoary,
With Saint and Angel, Ox and Ass,
To hail the King of Glory.
26 August 1859
Zechariah
(Luke 1)
So it was our clan’s turn
And the dice rolled in my favour.
Beth will be happy.
The old dear has always been proud
When I get my day in the temple.
With people praying outside
I was inside and about to light the incense
And then …
And then …
You wouldn’t believe it …
Next to the altar of incense …
You wouldn’t believe it …
We hadn’t seen one in hundreds of years.
An angel!
AN ANGEL!
Nearly scared the life out of me!
“Don’t be afraid,” he said.
Easy for him to say!
Then he goes on,
Beth, the old girl, will have a son.
Beth!
At her age!
“Call him John,” he said.
Not even a family name.
He was to grow up like a Nazirite
– So no alcohol.
And he will turn people back to God.
How can this be? I said.
And then I said no more.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t talk.
This angel Gabriel,
As called himself,
Struck me dumb.
Until now as I hold John
In my arms.
And I can praise God!
Waiting
Waiting is hard
Fingers twiddling
Feet tapping restlessly
Mind wandering
Head scratching
Watch looking
Pacing.
But
Advent is not just
waiting
But expecting
Looking forward
Anticipating
.. even more, longing
For the Messiah
The Christ
The Saviour
Waiting
… and now
For His return.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Gen 3:15
Sin had slithered in
and God living harmony
destroyed.
Life and love became terminal.
Hope less.
Through the human
silence of the guilty
in the garden
the Word spoke again.
Sin and love
declared enemies.
One must go.
An enemy crushed.
A head abolished
forever.
The cost:
The Godman would come
From the broken
Mother of the living.
A divine son slain.
A Word crucified
so that love
and harmony
will rise and rule again.
Pieter Stok
The room is nervously quiet.
A heater gently hums.
There is the rustling of twitching pages.
Then the reading time finishes
and the starting gun booms in explosive silence.
The click and scratch of pens flinch in earnest.
Unseen but real
nervous energy tensions the air.
Minds ponder,
details are rummaged for in far recesses
while palms sweat.
Only to know that this is “practice”
and it needs to be done all over again.
We left footprints in the sand.
Mine large,
His small.
His dancing with excitement
In circles and jumps.
Mine in a straight line, alert
cautious.
A sand castle here,
A shell there.
Seaweed, seagulls
and sticks.
Exciting materials,
to explore and investigate.
His steps will become larger.
Mine will fade.
But there was a time
when we walked on the beach
together.
Nothing thrills an English teacher more than seeing students become excited about words.
Recently a poet visited the school and held a workshop with a group of students. I sat at the back of the room and observed the class. Cameron, the poet, slowly removed the restraints on the students’ imagination through a variety of sensing and imagining exercises and then they wrote, explored, refined and developed their ideas.
The results were astounding. Some of the students, usually retiring and shy, read their marvelous poems and received praise from their fellow students.
What impressed me was the depth and complexity of thought that some of these poems revealed: reflections on life, living and creation that went beyond the mundane. It reminded me again of the teacher’s task to “unlock” and “enable” – to unlock the talents that that are there and to pass on the skills that enable the those gifts and talents to be developed.
It is humbling to watch a good teacher applying their skills and it is exhilarating to see the results.
Travels from Ur 