The Lions In the Desert

One for today’s readings, combining Isaiah and Matthew:

The lions in the desert,
they heard the Baptist first
and swore in their repentance
no blood should slake their thirst.

The jackals in the wastelands,
the vultures in the sky,
they turn and taste the sweet rains
where once all things were dry.

For they have heard the Baptist,
and in their hearts it burns,
the embers of his message—
that even vipers turn!

Then who am I to linger
and love my crooked ways
when adders sting no longer
and wolves with lambkins graze?

No, I shall go to Jordan
and plunge into its depths
to rise alive once more, then,
with song in every breath.

Then to God's holy mountain
I'll go with wolf and lamb,
where win flows like a fountain,
to praise the Great I Am!

John the Baptist in the wilderness By Hieronymus Bosch, 1504-1505 – https://kunsthistoriened.wordpress.com/sk1516/jeroen-bosch, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148079

Before the Heavens

Before the heavens or the earth,
before a single star,
before th'unveiling universe,
from age to age, you are.

And when the stars have all gone out,
dissolved in entropy,
the sun has gone forever down,
beyond our end, you'll be.

The wisdom spoken at the first
that let there be some light,
you played in all the newborn earth
and found in it delight.

You helped the maker shape the clay
before God breathed in us,
and then you taught us words to say,
God's breath out of our dust.

Then come again, O Word Unfurled
upon creation's scroll,
delighting in the weary world:
Come now, and make us whole.

For we were always crumbling dust,
upheld but by your work.
Come back and breathe once more in us.
Speak us again, O Word.

NGC 4414, a typical spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, is about 55,000 light-years in diameter and approximately 60 million light-years from Earth. By The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)NASA Headquarters – Greatest Images of NASA (NASA-HQ-GRIN) – http://nix.larc.nasa.gov/info;jsessionid=1sl2so6lc9mab?id=GPN-2000-000933&orgid=12http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-1999-25-a-full_tif.tif, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=127019

And He Himself

And he, in the beginning,
and he himself the end,
a thread of seconds spinning,
the heaven's veil to rend:
as flesh and blood's withinning,
the highest love descends.

And he himself the sower,
and he himself the seed,
casts love still low and lower
beneath our weary feet.
Now hidden in the furrow,
he aches with winter's need.

And he himself, the spoken,
no silence now disturbs.
The hope that he betokens
seems nothing but absurd,
until the the night breaks open
with cries that have no words.

And he himself the living
is he himself the dead,
calls us into forgiving
with all we've done and said,
into the feast he's giving,
and he himself the bread.

Baptistery mosaics, Last Judgment – Christ the Judge https://duomo.firenze.it/en/discover/baptistry

Beware!

Be sure of this: if the master of the house
had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,
he would have stayed awake
and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.
Matthew 24:37-44

Beware! The thief is coming,
though no one knows the hour
when David's key is turning
and Jesse's root shall flow'r.
Then all your strong defenses
will crumble to the ground:
He'll come with recompenses
while mountains tumble down.

Be watchful, and be ready—
Do not, dare not to sleep!
His coming, long awaited,
th'appointed time shall keep.
Prepare yourself for testing;
stand firmly in the fight:
The plow must be your weapon,
your armor made of light.

Behold, this is the moment—
shall it e'er come again?—
the thief is on your doorstep
and knocks to be let in.
Make ready to receive him;
prepare a level way.
Get up and let the thief in:
At your house he must stay.

Christ Pantocrator By Unknown author – Unknown source, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5820582

Lay Your Weapons Down

This is what Isaiah, son of Amoz,
saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come,
the mountain of the LORD’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain
and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it;
many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may instruct us in his ways,
and we may walk in his paths.”
For from Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and impose terms on many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
one nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again.
O house of Jacob, come,
let us walk in the light of the Lord!
Isaiah 2:1-5

Come, lay your weapons down,
and plunge them in the soil.
The sword that was so sharp and proud
is humbled to our toil.
Now it shall plow the ground,
tear out the roots of war:
Prepare a place for seeds to sprout,
a harvest for our joy.

Unless the seed should fall
it would remain a seed,
but buried, it shall rise up tall,
a hundredfold to yield.
The scythe is at the stalk—
it once had been a spear—
come, now; the harvestmaster calls:
His day is drawing near!

Then let us climb at once
the mountain of the Lord,
and hand in hand declare a truce,
lay down the hungry sword.
Come, plow the fallow tombs
and let our roots take hold
to grow the grain our God shall use
to feed a hungry world!

Mosaic in the Beit Habad Gallery, Jerusalem, quoting Isaiah 2:4, with lion, spear and spade. By benito roveran from verona, Italia – IMG_4713, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36487009

When the Rivers Turn to Deserts

For a long time I have kept silent,
I have said nothing, holding myself back;
Now I cry out like a woman in labor,
gasping and panting.
I will lay waste mountains and hills,
all their undergrowth I will dry up;
I will turn the rivers into marshes,
and the marshes I will dry up.
I will lead the blind on a way they do not know;
by paths they do not know I will guide them.
I will turn darkness into light before them,
and make crooked ways straight.
These are my promises:
I made them, I will not forsake them.
Isaiah 42:14-16

When the rivers turn to deserts
and the seas to barren sands,
on what pathways will you send us
through those dry, untrodden lands?
On such unknown roads, O Shepherd,
we are lost without your hand!

When the shadows all have lengthened
and the night we fear descends,
let us find in it our shelter
and the refuge of your wings.
As our crooked ways are straightened,
may we greet the dark as friends.

For the days are surely coming
when the skies dissolve in flame,
and the earth is rent asunder
by the sounding of your name.
When you come to us in thunder,
Savior, may we not be shamed!

When you come, come with compassion
for the creatures you have made.
Come and fill all that's found wanting
when you weigh us in the scales.
May we come to meet you gladly
on the roads that you make straight!

Sun, moon, and large telescopes above Chile’s Atacama Desert By ESO/S. Brunier – http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1218a/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24975825

The Bruised

Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am pleased.
Upon him I have put my spirit;
he shall bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry out, nor shout,
nor make his voice heard in the street.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.
He will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow dim or be bruised
until he establishes justice on the earth;
the coastlands will wait for his teaching.
Isaiah 42:1-4

The bruised shall not be broken;
the light shall not go dim
until his word is spoken.
The coastlands wait for him
who comes as but as whisper
and shows but as a spark,
yet all the world shall listen
and seek him in the dark.

To all who thirst for justice
he is the living stream,
who hunger for the judgment
he is the boundless feast.
He shall not strike in temper
nor raise an angered voice,
yet Christ, the gentle shepherd,
will call us to rejoice.

For he, the reed once broken,
our brokenness shall heal,
and he, the word once spoken,
no secret shall conceal.
Now mercy's ancient brilliance
shall fill our nights and days,
for he, the light unkindled,
will never fade away.

Isaiah, fresco painted by Michelangelo and his assistants for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican between 1508 to 1512 By Michelangelo – Self-scanned, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2776989

Emptying

[Christ Jesus], though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:6-8

See now, the days are counting down
and, oh, the time is drawing near:
The Virgin's belly waxes round,
and soon the Savior will appear.

For Christ is emptying himself
to fill his mother's empty womb.
He binds his godhead into flesh,
and someday it shall fill the tomb.

Then he shall go to empty hell
and make of death an empty threat.
And then no tongue on earth shall tell
the fullness of his infant breath.

Then at the end, when all is done
and heaven spills out o'er the world,
the king of glory shall return:
Across the void, his sign unfurls.

Christ Jesus, fill our empty hearts
that we may bear you in our lives:
Then light shall fill our empty dark
and all our midnights shall be bright.

O come, as once you came to earth—
our empty hands embrace your own—
then we shall shine as, at your birth,
the hosts of heaven sang and shone.

*The Angel appearing to the Shepherds*, fresco of the 12th century, Basilica of San Isidoro, León By Unknown author – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15611393

Dust Magnificat

My soul must magnify the Lord
as he shrinks down, a speck of dust
that floats on sunlight to the floor,
as nothing as the rest of us.

How can this be, that he should live
as near as dust to dust is near?
Yet I shall give what I can give:
a home among the dust motes here.

And all the motes shall praise my name,
not for myself—no dust can bear
the weight of glory's endless flame—
but for the dust my dust shall bear:

As grit within the tyrant's eye
he grinds blind justice into gaze;
a spark upon the wind, he flies
to set the mighty woods ablaze;

a tiny seed ground into flour,
he fills the hungry with his bread;
a grain of sand that fills the hour,
he throws the powerful in dread.

Yes, even now the Lord Most High
remembers what he said to us,
and on the way to paradise
he raises up a cloud of dust.

Dust dancing in the sunlight in an old riding hall By E.mil.mil – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36177296 OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

How Can It Be? (Elizabeth’s Song)

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
“Blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”
Luke 1: 39-45

How can it be, in these late days,
that you should visit here?
That something in me leaps in praise
to know you drawing near?

How can it be, O living Lord,
though I had given up,
you now fulfill your ancient word
and fill the empty cup?

That after all my long despair,
O God, how can it be
you tear away the earthly veil
and come to dwell with me?

That you should fill me with your life
and fill my mouth with song,
and in my heart your wellsprings rise
where drought had reigned so long?

Now shall the barren places bloom,
the deserts harvest joys,
now you have filled the inner room
and freed the muted voice!

I have no words to speak of this
but these: How can it be?
I know not how, but so it is:
My Lord has come to me!