Jesus, illuminating Light,
Undivided by darkness;
The lineaments of his face,
Eyes searching, sorrowing eyes
Sowing seeds of kindness in lowly fields
of pain and care;
Eyebrows like eaves overshadowing bare
walls of clay and stone;
Jaw, strong keeping the frame of features
bold and brown;
His nose, long and lesser in power than
His lips speaking or the eyes looking
But like a guardian of the chambers of thought.
His body wrapped in a cloak of pure wool
Uncut and whole;
Hands lined with creased skin, roughened with
a carpenters work;
Arms muscular, browned with sunlight;
Legs and feet firm, sandals strapped with leather.
Who was he who left his bench to wander over
fields, hills and meadows looking for souls?
What turned his thoughts away from comforts, culinary arts, sweet repose between sheets and pillows rest?
He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,
And we hid our faces from him because we only loved life.
How loving is life compared with its author?
How jealous we were to save life, even a thimble
full to sip and taste.
He had a life we could not see.
That is why we would not receive him or listen to his words.
We lived on the outside, he on the inside where he talked with his Father in heaven, not a world he did not know, but a world he had always known.
For in his Father's house were many mansions,
If it were not so he would never have spoken of them.
Mary kept all these things in her heart and pondered them.
Her charge from heaven was to raise the Son of God to be king of a kingdom that would never end.
She knew too that a sword would pierce her own heart.
How she must have feared that sword!
He was her child yet she knew he was God's only begotten Son.
He was there when this earthly world was created,
When his Father said 'Let there be light.'
Undivided by darkness;
The lineaments of his face,
Eyes searching, sorrowing eyes
Sowing seeds of kindness in lowly fields
of pain and care;
Eyebrows like eaves overshadowing bare
walls of clay and stone;
Jaw, strong keeping the frame of features
bold and brown;
His nose, long and lesser in power than
His lips speaking or the eyes looking
But like a guardian of the chambers of thought.
His body wrapped in a cloak of pure wool
Uncut and whole;
Hands lined with creased skin, roughened with
a carpenters work;
Arms muscular, browned with sunlight;
Legs and feet firm, sandals strapped with leather.
Who was he who left his bench to wander over
fields, hills and meadows looking for souls?
What turned his thoughts away from comforts, culinary arts, sweet repose between sheets and pillows rest?
He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,
And we hid our faces from him because we only loved life.
How loving is life compared with its author?
How jealous we were to save life, even a thimble
full to sip and taste.
He had a life we could not see.
That is why we would not receive him or listen to his words.
We lived on the outside, he on the inside where he talked with his Father in heaven, not a world he did not know, but a world he had always known.
For in his Father's house were many mansions,
If it were not so he would never have spoken of them.
Mary kept all these things in her heart and pondered them.
Her charge from heaven was to raise the Son of God to be king of a kingdom that would never end.
She knew too that a sword would pierce her own heart.
How she must have feared that sword!
He was her child yet she knew he was God's only begotten Son.
He was there when this earthly world was created,
When his Father said 'Let there be light.'