After reading my Advent Poem last week, my mother-in-law sent me a message pointing out how rich this season is. One of the things she mentioned was that, even though most people assume the old Carol “Joy to the World” is about the birth of Jesus, it’s actually about his second coming. Read the lyrics if you don’t believe her! But it’s true. During the Advent Season, not only do we remember the first coming of Christ, but we look forward to the second coming. Now, I’ve been trying to base my poems on the themes of the four Advent Sundays, which is hard to do since everyone has their own version. But the version I’ve been going with has hope the first week, and peace the next. Peace is an interesting concept when put in light of the second coming, because we know that when Jesus returns, there will be a battle. Pretty much the opposite of peace, right? But we know peace comes at a price. One of my favorite moments in The Chronicles of Narnia happens in The Last Battle when Jewel the Unicorn sees Aslan’s country and cries out that this is what they had been longing for all their lives. Everything they loved about the old Narnia was merely a shadow of this new Narnia. The passion I can hear in Jewel’s voice in those few lines convince me that this new Earth we’ve been longing for is worth any price it may cost. It’s worth the price of a battle and, perhaps more profound, it’s worth the price that Jesus was willing to pay on our behalf during the first coming: The perfect harmony of both justice and mercy.
To Know Peace
Adventus Two
Tucked away in a library near my home
there is a stained glass window
with pictures of the Christ. He is frozen
in time, coloring the day with a serene
hand lifted, two fingers extended for
peace.
And so I have heard Him preached.
The skinny messiah living on loaves
and fish. Words flow like a bubbling brook
from his combed beard, softly like the coo
of a dove, that quiet nesting symbol of
peace.
But the lion prowls in the presence
of the dove. Though seldom preachers
preach of his hot tempered mane
flashing like fire, roaring like thunder
and like cranes in the Savannah flies away our
peace.
And soon he rides a white horse
with bloodstains on his robes as he presses
wine from the fury of divine retribution. He turns
his head and speaks a sword, rebukes those
who cry “Peace! Peace!” when there is no
peace.
So what do we make of the babe sleeping
in the manger? An infant crusader
who came to turn his sword upside down
and be hanged, turn his wrath against
himself, be fed to the lions that we may know
peace.
So come again, Lord Jesus. Not so we may see
peace but that we may know it. The last battle
will spin like a hurricane but you are the eye
where stained glass windows will be safe and
justice given with mercy will be our definition of
peace.
One Comment Add yours