Counted

“For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me,
namely, He was counted among the wicked;
and indeed what is written about me is coming to fulfillment.”
—Luke 22:14-23:56

We had Eden, but we lost it,
and our lives as leaves are flown.
Now a chasm—Lord, you crossed it—
lies between us and your throne.
You are counted with the fallen,
flesh of flesh and bone of bone.

Now into creation's burden
you have come to bear its griefs,
and at last to crush the serpent
died, a leaf among the leaves.
You were counted with the worthless,
as a thief among the thieves.

Knowing this would mean your slaughter,
still you filled the wounded world.
Even the rope that Judas knotted
had you woven in the cord.
You were counted with the godless,
and you took their death as yours.

Even the leaf by winter withered
clinging empty to the vine
you will draw into your kingdom
when you drink the brand-new wine.
You were counted with the sinners:
Count us, Lord, with the divine.

Ecce Homo, Nuno Gonçalves, 15th century By Unknown author – [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6014228

Go and Sin No More

Mashing up today’s readings:

What was spoken in the darkness
shaped all things as they were then—
so the earth and seas were parted
'til God brings them back again,
'til his rivers fill the desert
or the ocean waters stand,
'til he brings us to his presence
and we find the promised land.

What was spoken in creation 
earth and ocean answered true.
Now is God all things remaking—
he is doing something new.
Crossing deserts, crossing waters,
all that once kept us apart,
he seeks out his sons and daughters
and he brings them to his heart.

What was spoken first in Eden
making all things, making us,
he is writing at our feet here,
drawing new life from the dust.
Not the words of condemnation
for the things that came before,
but the words of new creation:
Go, my own, and sin no more.

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1565 by Pieter Bruegel, oil on panel, 24 cm × 34 cm (9.4 in × 13.4 in) – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15452042

You Could Have Walked the Jordan

You could have walked the Jordan
as once you walked the waves
like solid ground before you
above our countless graves,
and steadfast on the waters
you had no need to dive.
Though all before had faltered,
you could have stayed alive.

For since the days of Noah
we had been deep in flood;
since Eden, even older,
our ways have drowned in blood.
Yet Jordan's waters cleansed us
and freed us from our sin.
But death is still relentless:
We swim and sink again.

Though Jordan would have parted,
laid dry land at your feet,
you sank like Pharaoh's army
where Adam lies with Eve
and all their sons and daughters
since Satan fell from heav'n—
and up out of those waters
you bring them back again.

The Baptism of Christ, Aert de Gelder, c. 1710 – http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6893009

Prayer to Mary

In the beginning, God did shape
the sun, the moon, the stars,
and in the end he'll recreate
this weary world of ours,
but now the one who made all things
stares wide-eyed as he he hears you sing.

O Mary, here you hold the word
that makes creation new,
and holding him you hold the world—
Let us draw near to you
to shelter with him in your cloak,
for he is all our life and hope.

The son of heaven has come down
to bear with us the hurt:
The one who sleeps in your arms now
has joined us in the dirt,
then in the strength of your embrace
enfold us, too, into his grace.

And here beneath the stars he made,
teach us the song you sing
that waits for his eternal day
and trusts him in all things.
And pray for us, that we might be
his own in bright eternity.

Mary nursing the Infant Jesus. Early image from the Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, c. 2nd century By Unknown author – adapted from the quoted page., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=507221

We Count the Generations

Brothers and sisters:
Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another,
if one has a grievance against another;
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
And over all these put on love,
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts,
the peace into which you were also called in one body.
—Colossians 3:12-17

We count the generations
and trace the family line 
from Abraham to David—
but oh, what shame we find.

Yet this our God has chosen,
our littleness and sin:
His mercy new each morning
makes God himself our kin.

The glorious son of heaven
on earth has come to live
that we may be his kindred—
our broken bread is his.

Then may I cast off hatred
as he cast off his crown
and bend to serve my neighbor
as he himself knelt down,

and put on over all things
the perfect bond of love,
For God so loved our smallness
he knit himself thereof.

As Jesus Christ our brother
put on our very dust,
so may we love each other
and rise to where he was.

A typical Jesse Tree of the Late Medieval period, detail of the Spinola Hours of Ludwig by the Master of James IV of Scotland, (1510-20) Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29732235

Christ Our Light Is Dawning

How beautiful upon the mountains
       are the feet of him who brings glad tidings,
   announcing peace, bearing good news,
       announcing salvation, and saying to Zion,
       “Your God is King!”
Hark! Your sentinels raise a cry,
       together they shout for joy,
   for they see directly, before their eyes,
       the LORD restoring Zion.
   Break out together in song,
       O ruins of Jerusalem!
   For the LORD comforts his people,
       he redeems Jerusalem.
   The LORD has bared his holy arm
       in the sight of all the nations;
   all the ends of the earth will behold
       the salvation of our God.
—Isaiah 52:7-10

How beautiful the footsteps
and steady-beating heart 
that bring to us a good word
and say, “Here is your God!”

Now see what he is doing,
that never yet was seen.
Break into song, you ruined,
for you have been redeemed!

Our sentinels have told it—
O, hearken to their cry!—
and we, too, shall behold it,
the dawn that greets our eyes.

The empty places in us
where shadows made their home,
shine out as morning fills us,
for lo! Our light has come!

For all the days we hungered,
new feasts will fill our lack.
All that was taken from us
will someday be led back.

Stand up and greet the morning,
the promise coming true.
For Christ our light is dawning
and mercy is made new!

Aci Castello Sicily Italy – Creative Commons by gnuckx By gnuckx, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53170013

You Promised Once and Once Again

When Christ came into the world, he said:
   “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
       but a body you prepared for me;
   in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight.
   Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll,
   behold, I come to do your will, O God.’“
—Hebrews 10:5-10

You promised once and once again
to send to us a son,
and never, never mentioned when
but let the moments run.

And into hours and into days
they run and still run on,
and into nights whose sleepless gaze
still waits to see the dawn.

Then into months and into years
and into age on age,
and all the while he's drawing near
while yet we flow'r and fade.

How long, O Lord, 'til waiting ends?
O, say, when will it be
that every bloody sword shall bend
and every slave go free?

But even now a form you limn;
you weave it thread on thread.
A body you prepare for him,
to crush the serpent's head.

And now we count the seconds past
as once we counted days.
How soon he comes—he comes at last!
And we shall see his face!

Eastern Christian fresco of the Visitation in St. George Church in Kurbinovo, North Macedonia By Unknown author – http://faq.macedonia.org/images/embrace.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9976800

Bone of Our Bones

So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,
and while he was asleep,
he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib
that he had taken from the man.
When he brought her to the man, the man said:
   “This one, at last, is bone of my bones
       and flesh of my flesh;
   this one shall be called ‘woman, ‘
       for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife,
and the two of them become one flesh.
—Genesis 2:18-24

We come from the dust of the earth,
and back to the dust we shall go
as naked at death as at birth;
our hands shall be empty once more.

So Adam from Eden came forth
to live by the sweat of his brow,
to wrestle with thistle and thorn
until he was laid in the ground.

But, oh, not alone shall he lie,
nor Eve shall not lie there alone,
for sprung from them both came the Christ:
In him all their sorrows are known.

He came to be shaped of the dust
and born of his mother in blood,
to share all our striving with us
and go back again to the mud.

For he is the bone of our bones,
and he is the flesh of our flesh.
No more do we walk on unknown,
but he bears our life and our death

to open the eyes of our hearts
and raise us again to new life
as sinless as back at the start,
to make us forever his bride.

Adam and Eve depicted in a mural in Abreha wa Atsbeha Church, Ethiopia, Photo By Bernard Gagnon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27934949

Good & Evil

The God who met us in the cool of evening
and let us see the sunlight on his face
now hides from us as first we hid in Eden,
while good and evil gladly take his place.

But surely they will save us from what's coming:
They'll not sit idle while we weep and pray
or silent stand to see our children crumbling
to fall like ashes into open graves.

But when the evening falls, bereft and empty,
the tallies of our goodness fall like leaves
for no one comes to meet us with a welcome,
and no one weeps with us in all our grief.

We weep, but still the desert's dry and thirsty—
the good we do can only do so much.
And still the serpent stings us without mercy,
reminding us of all that we have lost:

The wonder and the beauty we were given,
the home we've never known, but know its theft
because we took the only thing forbidden.
Now good and evil's all that we have left.

Not 'til one comes who knows the loss of Eden,
whose goodness is no substitute for love,
who does not turn away even from evil—
not until then will we see God with us.

The Garden of Eden in the left panel of Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights By Hieronymus Bosch – This file has been extracted from another file, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148816

Eat

Before the breaking of the bread
or walking on the sea,
before your rest in manger-bed
or Mary's “let it be,”
before you spoke and bid us hear
or our own tongues unfurled,
before our hunger called you near
you fed us in the world.

You did not wait 'til Bethlehem
to join us in the dust,
nor for the new Jerusalem
to break your bread with us,
but you who kneaded Eden's soil
to sculpt us as your face
you labored with us in our toil,
in our meals took your place.

There's not a crumb upon the board
that did not come from you,
and whether we could see you, Lord,
or not, you lay there, too.
You made the stomach of our need
and made it to be filled.
You made yourself the bread we eat,
and you will feed us still.

Slab stele from mastaba tomb of Itjer at Giza. 4th Dynasty, 2543–2435 BC. Itjer is seated at a table with slices of bread, shown vertical by convention. Egyptian Museum, Turin. Photo By Ian Alexander – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54612130