Christianity,  Poetry

Quiet he lies

Courtesy of Stockxchnge

Our pastor has been taking a close look at what some of our traditional Christmas carols have to teach us. It’s making this richest of seasons even richer.

Yesterday while teaching on “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” he brought some lines from a poem by Luci Shaw to our attention. I wasn’t familiar with the poem, but it’s a wonderful discovery, honing in on some of the mind-blowing paradoxes of Christmas.

Here are a few excerpts:

Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before…

Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

–From “Mary’s Song,” by Luci Shaw. Read the rest of the poem here.

What words are bringing Advent into focus for you this season?

4 Comments

  • Barbara H.

    Wow — that poem is beautiful.

    Our pastor has been going through Isaiah 9:6 through December, focusing on a phrase at a time. “Wonderful Counselor” was last week, “Mighty God” yesterday. He commented that we tend to pull this passage out like a Christmas ornament once a year when it is so rich and so applicable for all time. It’s been a rich study.

  • bekahcubed

    What a rich poem!

    The phrase “nailed to my poor planet” struck me with the depth of the Incarnation. We’ve discussed in our systematic theology course how the eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent Son of God has forever bound Himself inside a human body. Only when I realize the boundlessness of the Son prior to the Incarnation do I fully recognize the humility of Christ.

    “Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
    ~Philippians 2:6-10

  • Janet

    I agree — it’s amazing to ponder. The sermon yesterday brought out the truth that God altered his mode of being in the Incarnation — he who had previously been pure Spirit was “veiled of flesh.” Forever.

    I hadn’t really grasped that before. I guess I assumed that Jesus always had a body. But “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”