Taking Advent seriously

ADVENT PROSE REVISITED

Rend the heavens, come quickly down –

Can we mean it? In the dark

to ask the God to come like this

would have us tremble at the presence

sought that Sunday as we sang.

Behold, thou wast angry and we sinned – 

dear God, we try, we know our sin, 

we see too clearly where we are.

The veiled women weep, the bomb

explodes on distant soil:

we worry lest our own are there,

care less about the ruined lives

among the debris of our wars.

All our deeds are like a polluted garment -

hung about us in the cold

as if we fear our nakedness,

would do anything to hide.

The child dies at the hands of those

whose task is care and love

while we, appalled, avert our eyes

from innocence betrayed.

We all fade like a leaf

and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away –

light little things in the face of creation

and yet, and yet …

Lord, we continue. You have never

swept us from the face of earth.

We love and beget and children

lovely children, innocent and clean

come naked into the world

in your eternal promise of what can be.

Your Son will come, again, again

and we have hope, another chance

to use your world in precious ways

to hold your people to your face.

As tiny fingers clasp round ours

we reach into the dark and feel

the strength of love enfolding us.

The heavens are rent as if a cloud

were parted at the end of rain

and light will come too bright to tell – 

we sing again. Come, Lord, and soon.

©C.M.M

I wrote this some time ago at this point in the year. Sadly, the world that I linked to the words of the Advent Prose has, if anything, become a sadder place - and one very much in need of the promises of hope.