“And he did what was evil
in the sight of the lord”
That common epitaph like a pall
Hung over the memory of most
The kings of Israel and Judah
That country of schism
with ‘covenant, calling and charter’
To be a light to the myriad of nations
Grasping and feeling
their way through the darkness
Weary and short of breath
a watching world doubts
and laughs at the promises
“Their kings also set up high places
Offered sacrifice of strange fire”
and even children
So the light darkened and became a
mirror to the darkness –
another stumbling block
But in the nursery
of Israel’s greatest King
Bethlehem heralds
a change in regime
The remnant reduced
to one faithful Israelite
Royal keeper of the covenant,
suffering servant,
and light to the nations
Born in a manner
worthy of his people
No room in the inn,
instead a stable
Not an infant’s throne,
but a manger
A life of lowliness to
lift his broken subjects
And His reign knows no end
The rest of the poems from Rusten Harris’s Advent series on Moss Kingdom:
Incarnation, Christmas Eve, Kings, Some Kind of Glory, Chains, Gifts, Quotidian Couple, A Thousand Lights, Eve & Mary, Treasured Up, Christmas, Winter Staves, The Glorias, Cherubim, Joseph, Strange Redeemer, Womb, Magi, Temple Trough, Advent, Lord’s Day, Far as the Curse is Found, Jubilee, The Massacre of the Innocents, Liturgical Time
Other Advent poems on Moss Kingdom:
December 21: an Advent poem for the Winter Solstice, Of Edmund and Aslan, Tiptoe Hope, The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats