Tag Archives: scripture

Still Celebrating Festival

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

In my crawl through Luke, I have spent several days in chapter 22. It may just be my imagination, but it seems like Luke WANTS us to slow down here, like he has put a video in slow motion.

Verse 7 caught my attention, as though it were a title page in Luke’s video: “Then came the day of unleavened bread, on which the passover had to be sacrificed.” Since I have been watching for thoughts shared by Dr. Luke and his companion the Apostle Paul, I asked myself, “Is Luke consciously comparing Jesus to the sacrificial lamb of Passover?” I knew Paul does that.

I looked up the occurrences of “sacrifice” (θυω, thuo), that Luke used in verse 6. That led me to a passage in 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul is urging his readers to guard their moral purity:

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:7‭-‬8 ESV

Two things jumped out at me in the 1 Corinthians passage:

1) Luke’s friend Paul certainly thought of Jesus as the sacrificed Passover Lamb (I know that’s not news to most of my readers), and

2) There is a sense in which we are still celebrating the festival of Passover that Jesus and His disciples celebrated just before His death (“let us therefore celebrate”). That’s what prompted my poem.

So, I slow down in Luke 22. The story is still happening, monthly, weekly, daily. As long as it takes.

NOTE: I’m aware that the second-to-last line mixes pronoun case: “Him” and “they” can’t both be right here. So, do I fix it? For now I’ll let it go. Maybe there’s something to be gained by considering which case was correct!

Meek, Inherit

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Matthew 5:5 NIV

It’s unsettling to look back on a lifetime of false confidence in man. I suspect most of us grow up thinking, “I’m one of the good guys. All that I possess was fairly earned, righteously taken.” But the more I learn about history, the more that fantasy is dispelled.

(background image by Alicja on Pixabay)

Now We’re Family

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary)

Commentary

I am woefully behind in posting poetry to this blog. I wanted to go ahead and post this one while the emotion underlying it is still fresh.

My morning routine these days includes reading through the New Testament in Greek. It’s a slow process because I’m frankly not very good at it. But that has its benefits. Mainly, I’m slowed down by the process, and my mind has more time to mull over what’s being said. Luke has occasioned a lot of mulling. His Greek has struck me as more refined and elevated than what I encountered in Matthew and Mark. Even when I can’t pin down the reasons for his careful word choice, I can see that he’s doing SOMETHING interesting, generally to develop a theme.

When I write about my routine, I refer to it as “my crawl through Luke.” It’s slow, and it often feels like I’m a baby in my understanding. At least I won’t run out of things to explore in this lifetime!

My crawl through Luke brings me to the end of chapter 18 and the beginning of chapter 19. Luke is doing SOMETHING with this juxtaposition of two stories. One happens outside Jericho, and the other happens inside Jericho. Both involve men who cannot see. I have tried to imagine what it might have been like for those two men to become friends. In this poem, Zacchaeus is talking with the unnamed blind beggar….

(background image by Sophia Hilmar on Pixabay)

Where’s Daniel

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

Most dreams can be tossed. This one, I thought I’d better save. What does it mean?

The longer I write poetry, the more it seems to be a revealing of the subconscious. I had no control over the dream. But I did have control over how I described it. That the ghostly figure was “removed,” and that I experienced this as “loss” probably points to a sense of loss that haunts me these days.

What have I lost? What am I losing? Plenty. If it weren’t for the promise of eternal life, and a restoration of good things, maybe even the gold would have disappeared. But the gold remained.

(background adapted from image by Andrew Martin on Pixabay)

Shedding Subtleties

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary)
(background photo adapted from one by “ilamag” on Pixabay)

Commentary

When I try to shock myself and others out of our complacency, I usually discover that we’re well insulated.

I get the impression that the Gospel author Luke wanted to shock his readers. In story after story, he illustrates Jesus’ absolute demands on his disciples… and the disciples’ absolute compliance. The central passage may be this one:

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:33

In Luke’s account of how the disciples followed Jesus, we see that renouncing of everything. For instance, when Jesus calls Simon, James and John away from their career as fishermen, here’s how they respond

And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Luke 5:11

“Everything” — that’s more than I have renounced. And that makes me uncomfortable. What also makes me uncomfortable is how quickly my mind tries to supply excuses. You know, stuff like decorum, not being a burden on others, being “wise.”

See a devotional I did on this back during the height of the pandemic: “Generosity, a Fruit of Godliness.”

Judah, Fourth Child

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary)

Commentary

I’m slowly working my way through Walter Kaiser Jr’s “The Messiah in the Old Testament.” It’s one of the books my father was thinking through at age 86, shortly before he died. The margins are graced with Dad’s notes. Naturally, I’m reminded often of him and his devotion to the Messiah. Some fine day….

This poem reflects on something at once puzzling and confirming about the Bible: God doesn’t operate as we would. If we were arranging things for the eventual coming of the Messiah, we’d probably make sure his ancestors were admirable characters. Read Genesis, and observe what kind of character Judah was. Jesus’ ancestor was a run-of-the-mill sinner. On the other hand, Judah’s younger brother Joseph was a remarkable, admirable character. He’s the hero through much of Genesis. Again, if I had been writing the story, I’d have made the promised Messiah come through Joseph’s line, not Judah’s.

God doesn’t operate that way. Through the story he created, He says, “I promise to bring this thing about, and lest anyone should get the idea that man is clever, and earns what I give him, I’ll bring it about through normal, undeserving sinners.”

(background photo: an artist’s castoff)

Private Psalms

Commentary

I wrote this poem in anticipation of talking with a fellow poet. One topic I wanted to discuss with him is the vulnerability of baring your breast through revealing words. Is it insanity or inspiration?

We didn’t get to the “inspiration” part, but the “insanity” part was almost funny…. My fellow poet read me one of several poems he has written while struggling with depression. He said that people have phoned him after reading such a poem to say, “I read your poem. Are you okay?” He answers, “Thanks. I’m doing better because I wrote that poem.”

I don’t enjoy listening to people complain. I’ve noticed that other people don’t enjoy listening to me complain. Sometimes, my public complaint is answered by a public rebuke, often with an underlying, “If you were as spiritual as I am, you wouldn’t have such thoughts.”

I don’t know a good workaround. One of my jobs as a poet is to express what’s hard to express. That can include negative thoughts, and problems whose solution hasn’t appeared.

Amazing Nonchalance

Commentary

When I was ten, we moved to the States from a country where practicing religion was always costly. Mostly, the cost was self-imposed, as many thought they could earn God’s favor. For a few, the cost was appropriate, and unavoidable, as they could not be comfortable with surrounding culture. IN CONTRAST, what I saw here in the States was that practicing religion seemed to cost nothing. That concerned me then, and it concerns me still.

Someone may respond, “I’m not comfortable with surrounding culture! So, wouldn’t you agree that I am paying a price to be a Christian!” My answer: maybe, maybe not. The thing about culture is that it is never merely “surrounding.” Rather, it works its way into much — if not all — of what we think and do. We’re part of it. It’s part of us.

Simply being upset at others’ immorality is not enough. Jesus’ prescription is not “Get mad at the world.” His prescription is, “You! You. If necessary, cut off your own arm. Gouge out your own eye. Renounce everything that YOU have.”

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:33

Adam Gets Tripped Up

Commentary

This light-hearted poem is a prequel to the more serious “The King’s Toast.” By the way, my initial commentary on that poem was pretty muddled. If you already read that commentary, do me the favor of reading the improved version.

It’s probably obvious that in this poem I’m exploring the idea that an awareness of God’s presence would help us regulate our behavior. Have a problem with foul language? What if Jesus were right there beside you in a physical, visible form? Would you curse then?

I don’t know.

Closely related poem: “The King’s Toast.“

(background image by Adina Voicu on Pixabay)

Forgetful I Wander

Thinking of Abraham, Moses, and others* who thankfully illumine even now.

(background image from Pixabay)

*Poem was my immediate response to a Facebook post by Sten-Erik Armitage, where he wrote

In my pride, I don’t need God. I know better, and I can do it on my own. In my despair, I don’t want God. He doesn’t care, and he couldn’t help me anyway. In cultivating thanksgiving, I recognize my total dependence upon him and grow in humility and peace.

Sten-Erik Armitage

Why Angels Wonder

I didn’t get much sleep last night, pondering thoughts that wouldn’t pass muster in Angelology 101: Imagine for a moment the possibility that angels don’t possess our (humans’) imagination…. How odd we might seem to them. We philosophize, rhapsodize, and consistently compromise, imagining all along that thinking counts as doing, believing as obeying.

Job’s One Good Friend

Commentary

I wrote this after talking briefly with a friend who was struggling. It seemed to me that the friend needed nothing so much as a brother to share his burden — a brother who is willing to suffer alongside, to let the smoke blow in his own face. No lectures. No correction. Silent compassion can speak louder than words. At least that’s what I’m told.

Why “Job’s One Good Friend”? The biblical character Job had friends who sat with him for a while in silence. They had come together “to show him sympathy and comfort him.” But then they opened their mouths, and it wasn’t helpful. It seems that the one who came closest to being a true friend kept his mouth closed the longest.

And why a campfire? If you’ve ever sat around a campfire in the mountains, you know that as the wind direction shifts, the smoke sometimes blows in your face. Some guys feel that they are the target, no matter where they sit! I picture Job and his friends sitting around such a campfire, perhaps one that burned down to embers and then to ashes. “And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.”