Next in chronological order, after “Ever-Circling Years” (see MY POEMS OF CHRISTMAS #17), is a Christmas poem I wrote during the Lenten season, mixing themes from both Advent and Calvary....
FROM CRÈCHE TO CROSS
Amid the mishaps, plight and pain,
Or when grief’s prayer gets few replies,
Some doubt there lives a God above;
Some hearts despair of Heaven’s love,
As swollen eyes search silent skies
And stress besets their brow and brain.
Yet in this wayward world of woes,
From Virgin seed and Spirit breath
Was born a New Humanity,
To rescue us from vanity
And from the grasp of endless death:
The worst of dreaded human foes.
Before His Advent’s humble birth,
He caused the starry host to shine
And spread abroad the galaxies.
But then—His Father’s will to please—
The Son forsook His place divine
To don our flesh and dwell on Earth.
While on His trek from crèche to grave,
Christ showed our race the way to live.
Commending by compassion’s work
The labors some might loathe and shirk,
He shamed all hands too tight to give
By how He cared and what He gave.
He came to bless, not to condemn,
But was condemned for how He blessed.
Enduring ridicule and scorn
To win a world in sin forlorn,
He bids our weary souls to rest,
By choosing life filled up with Him.
Made blind from sin, misled to roam
Like faithless flocks, we wandered off
From Shepherd’s fold to danger’s loss.
It’s by His Incarnation’s Cross—
At which so many skeptics scoff—
That Jesus brings His lost sheep home.
— David L. Hatton, 2/10/2018
(this is in Poems Between Fear and Faith —
for purchasing it, go to My Books 4 Sale)
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