Tag: Jesse

I Cannot Keep Awake

“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy 
from carousing and drunkenness 
and the anxieties of daily life, 
and that day catch you by surprise like a trap.
For that day will assault everyone
who lives on the face of the earth.
Be vigilant at all times 
and pray that you have the strength 
to escape the tribulations that are imminent 
and to stand before the Son of Man.”
—Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

My eyes will not stay open;
I cannot keep awake,
but trust what you have spoken
that swiftly comes the day

when you will come restoring,
come bringing exiles home.
I may not be here for it,
but I wait, even so.

The memories we carry,
old sorrows we still weep
like seeds the winter buried,
not dead but fast asleep,

with Jesse's stump forgotten
yet watered by the dew—
all that we lost shall blossom,
becoming something new.

The fruit we stole in Eden
and Cain's rejected sheaves,
their shoots will grow like weeds then
into your mercy's feast.

And if I cannot see it,
if I am buried deep,
yet you will come, Redeemer,
to wake me from my sleep.

Detail of Jesse from the Stained Glass window of All Saints Church, Hove, Sussex. England, Photo By Malcolmlow, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64575403

O Radix Jesse

For Advent.

 O Father, as you know our span,
 teach us to count our days and nights,
 to make our peace with what you plan
 and know our place in it aright.
  
 For we, new shoots in dawn's new light,
 will wither long ere dusk should fall.
 Does all our promise, once so bright,
 to nothing come at Gabriel's call?
  
 A root that once grew cedar tall
 and sleeps as dead within the earth,
 yet living still in winter's pall,
 awakens and awaits its birth.
  
 A feast from in our barest dearth,
 from barren soil a rose shall bloom;
 from all our oldest sorrows, mirth,
 a dawning light from midnight gloom.
  
 New life is sprouting from the tomb;
 He comes, the long-expected flow'r!
 Come, withered hearts, prepare him room:
 Your faded leaves shall be his bow'r.
  
 We, too, shall blossom in his pow'r,
 a harvest even greater than
 we bore before, when comes his hour,
 when God-with-us comes, born a man.
The Tree of Jesse, By Unknown Miniaturist, English (active 1140s) – Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15498239