LECTIONARY ADVENT 3: There is news that is good (A poem in two parts). (Matthew 11:2-11)

PART ONE

"See what has happened!"

"See the course of events that have led to the coming of the word that you heard whispered through the prison bars."

"See what others have seen. Some for the first time."

"See through the eyes of your correspondents, witness what they witnessed."

"Through your people you ask a question, and I will not answer you in the way you might expect."

"Some say I speak in riddles and parables."

"And so it is. I speak to whom I want when I want and with what I want."

"I won't be cajoled into giving answers that I don't want to give."

"Even unto death."

"You ask if I am the one who is to come or if you must wait for another."

"Let the truthful witness of the lives I've touched speak to you."

"The blind see."

"The lame walk."

"The lepers are cleansed."

"The deaf hear."

"The dead live."

"And the poor hear Good News."

"This is the witness I give. This is my testimony. Told through the eyes and lives of those I've held and made whole."


PART TWO

Wandering towards the desert,
Helplessly hoping for a saviour,
For something,
For the soul's succour,
Reaching for an answer that will live on,
And give lived-meaning,
This answer so stirring,
That life might have a fresh leaning,
That captives might feel their chains fall,
That the land would be healed and would be whole.

"What did you expect in the wilderness? A reed shaken by the wind?"

Not this prophet for whom no place feels like home,
Not for this wandering hope-giver dressed in camel hair,
He wears no soft robes and he speaks no soft words,
The sentiments that slip from his lips slice reality in two,
In to two segments, a before and an after the before,
His aim and his role,
His life's work and his goal,
Predestined before time began,
To point from sin to a whole-life race to be ran,
For God's glory,
Lives telling the saviour's story,
Echoing down the ages,
Spoken of by sages,
Part of an eternity,
And called into never-ending fraternity, without a worldly answer.

"What did you expect in the wilderness? A reed shaken by the wind?"