Abba

As an infant babbles “Abba,”
or lets out a wordless cry,
so we wail for you, O Father:
Will your mercy pass us by?
You have seen us in our anguish
and you have not turned away,
but you sent your Word unlanguaged
who once uttered night and day.

Now he lies, as we lie, helpless
in the limits of our flesh,
and will one day lie there breathless
in the stillness of our death.
Where the silence is unbroken,
there the Word of life will go,
though he cannot be unspoken,
all our wordlessness he'll know.

So he wails across the midnight
with a newborn's feeble strength,
as each one of us begins life,
cry as old as birth itself.
He has joined us in our wailing;
let us join our cries to his
for the mercy neverfailing:
Father God, your mercy give!

Nativity of Christ, medieval illustration from the Hortus deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg (12th century), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31441189