Lent 9

 

1

 

We place Christ in a journey:

Celebrate his birth at Christmas

His presentation at the

Temple plus his

Baptism by his cousin John

Upon a bank of the Jordan River,

Then consider now

The earthly ministry

Ending in Jerusalem,

The next part of the calendar

 

What notes the work just now but

Miracles and teaching

And many encounters, one by one—

A woman by a well

A man who climbs a tree

Bemused to see this person

 

A woman who breaks

A vial of perfume to wash

His feet

A leper out of ten lepers

Who must return

With thanks

 

There is teaching

Answering the quandary, Who

Is my neighbor

A question about government

The discipline of a warrior

Who, though not a Jew, respects

The way of Christ as he would accept a

Commander’s prerogative

 

The woman who begs for scraps

Of mercy, who is rebuked

Before she astonishes him

With a reminder for whom he’s come

 

He comes for the Jews

He comes for Arabs and

For Romans

Even the pirates of

Parthia

He comes for the savage Britons

And the unknown Asians

He comes for them

He comes for then

He comes for now

He comes for you and me

 

Oh, how he loves you and me

And it never stops,

The arrival since creation

Life upon a troubled plain

The departure into earth

The return in keeping with

Prophecy and promise

 

C L Couch

 

 

Fritz Geller-Grimm – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1690920

Fritz Geller-Grimm – Own work

Saint James’s shell at a well of the Way, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Languedoc-Roussillon, France

(Camino de Santiago)

 

“Oh, How He Loves You and Me” by Kurt Kaiser