Burning

To burn but not to be consumed
would take a miracle;
or keep the dark at bay, entombed,
the lantern always full;

not to burn out or fade away,
but steady, still, and bright,
to hold unhurt the twisting flame
and not give way to night:

How could it be?  No human flesh
could bear the angry flame.
These mortal limbs, no burning bush,
cry out for mercy's rain.

Pour out, O heaven: Pour it out;
this conflagration still.
Pour rivers down into this drought;
these aching branches fill.

Drown me in mercy; let it run 
from reaching hands to roots,
then let me draw it up again,
alive with growing shoots.

Soften the hardness of my heart,
long purified in flame.
Wear down this stone to flesh, O God,
under the touch of rain.

Fire from loppings By Pavel Ševela, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1988522

O God of All the Living

Jesus said to them,
“The children of this age marry and remarry;
but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age
and to the resurrection of the dead
neither marry nor are given in marriage.
They can no longer die,
for they are like angels;
and they are the children of God
because they are the ones who will rise.
That the dead will rise
even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,
when he called out ‘Lord, ‘
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;
and he is not God of the dead, but of the living,
for to him all are alive.”
Luke 20:27-38

O God of all the living,
the unconsuming flame,
O saving and deliv'ring,
bring us to life again.

You drew us through the Red Sea;
now draw us through our death—
but who knows what we shall be
when you restore our breath?

From dust, to dust returning,
then dust is glorified;
not ash in your love's burning, 
but endless warmth and light.

But all our life is ashen,
from birth to our decay.
What shall we be, new-fashioned,
within your glorious day?

The bush ablaze yet growing,
its green shoots never burned:
So shall we stand adoring
within your love, O Lord.

And there shall be no sandals
on all that holy ground
where we shall burn like candles
that never shall burn out.

Moses and the burning bush. Painting from Dura-Europos synagogue, 3rd century CE By Anonymous – Own work → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moses_bush.jpg → http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Jesus/Jesus.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34210760

O Christ, the Burning Light of God

But the LORD said,
“I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt
and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers,
so I know well what they are suffering.
Therefore I have come down to rescue them
from the hands of the Egyptians
and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land,
a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15

To the tune CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM (“Creator of the Stars of Night”):

O Christ, the burning light of God,
the flame of love that Moses saw,
you heard our sorrows and came down
to make of earth a holy ground.

You saw our suffering and death
and counted every tear we'd wept.
You knew the plight of all th'enslaved
and bound yourself into their chains.

Come, take us from th'enslaver's hand
and lead us into Eden's land.
Though all the desert stretch before,
Lord, walk with us forevermore.

Through nights of waiting, days of thirst,
let living springs from dry stone burst.
Let manna all our hunger fill,
and flames of love burn in us still.

Come, save our bodies and our souls:
As bread from heaven, make us whole.
O Christ, who hears his people's voice,
turn all our sorrows into joys.

O promise made to Abraham,
you saved us by your own I AM.
Let every generation bless
God-with-us in the wilderness!