With the firmament glittering above
and the mold settled below,
Elohim Great became Yahweh Love
in one breath making soul.
Creation once void. Creature once not
even dead now exists to glorify God.
Pulled gloriously out from the rot,
he animated the cold, lifeless sod.
The preciousness of life, the weight of divine will
too soon was compared to tangible substance.
Sorrowfully Adam wasted our end to fulfill
his own desires. Miserable abusement
pulled his sunken eyes to lower things
until he could see nothing but the soil
of him, his world, clay pots, and gold rings.
Decrepit beauty fair to the disloyal.
But formed of the same basic stuff
of that to which we ascribe most worth,
man was discontent to continue worship of
that which shares our mortal birth.
So up we looked to that formed on the fourth,
a gift of cosmic whispers for those born on the sixth.
In the sky, out of reach, we found something more,
something above, untouched by the earthy mists.
But the gravity of self-interest and that of pride
steadily pull our gaze back to eye level.
We seek a god to stand by our side
one crafted of some other-earthly metal.
So we raise our own stars, celebrity,
just as we raised Babel in some yesteryear.
We think self-sufficience might make us free.
We hold our fallen, mortal form so dear.
The strong, powerful, beautiful, rich
we raise high as the highest stage will go.
We stare up with unblinking gaze, lunatic.
We see a star among the stars and think we know
what living perfection is; we see it clear!
But the star will descend, or might stay on high
to send down contempt, filth, or tears.
Only then we remember all one day die.
But still man will not release the deification
of his fellow man, though every example fall.
We seek a god of substance, of lively animation,
disappointed to find each man fails as one and all.
Yahweh, good father who deeply knows his own,
knew before he exhaled into lungs the first breath
that his children would ultimately look to his son,
only follow by example, and require his death.
God, in creation, infused his life into every atom
his character pervades, defines the universe.
How pretentious for the creature to try to live without him,
to suppose we live fullest life without the creator!
To demonstrate to our stunted moral imagination
and make clear all that is vital to eternal goodness,
what should be evident in each bit of creation,
Jesus Christ descended to our self-made mess.
He came as light, morning and evening star.
He came as a meek and mild harbinger
to call his beloved siblings in from afar.
But our love of hate demanded that he be interred
into an earthly grave, and this he foreknew.
He lived and prepared his whole life to die.
Like a sheep led to slaughter he was willing to go
to redeem his beloved from sinful mortality.
Man is conceived into death, wallows in trespass;
from birth his rot dissolves into earth’s mold.
His self-imposed natural state will not last.
To fire and pain his soul he has sold.
But Christ Jesus this nature reversed,
imputed to man what he could not be.
We glory in the mystery as he lifts our curse.
One thing I know: I was blind. Now I see.
The two options, life in Christ or death in sin,
are the only states available to mortal man.
Will we breathe the fresh air of resurrection
or be crushed by the judgement of God’s righteous hand?
So when our man-made star comes down from on high
that we can look direct in his frank, calm face
and says, “Once I was dead, now I’m alive,”
we’d be fools be to label it performance.
This man should know the new life within.
He breathes and sees where before he did not.
So judge not, but seek fruit and gladly worship in
the goodness and life of God, as we ought.