Does God Have Bones?

“Does God have bones?”
David asked me that today, Lord,
and I couldn’t answer him.
Well—do you?
Have bones I mean.
His question was serious, you know.
He wants to know who and how you are.
And where, too.
And if you’re like us.
I don’t always know.

Bones?
You did have bones once, didn’t you?
Bones and muscles and fingernails
that collected dirt, feet that tired
from miles on dusty roads
and hands that bloodied
from driven nails.
You became like us, didn’t you?

Thank you for reminding me.
Now I know the answer.
Tomorrow I’ll tell David again
that old old story
that even a child can understand.
About a God who filled his lungs
with earth air, tasted bread,
listened to cricket song at night,
held other four-year-olds
on his lap and personally
answered their questions.
About a God who loves so much
he put on bones
and more, much more.

Tomorrow I’ll tell him.

[Note: This poem was first published in the collection “Of Deity and Bones,” 1983.] 

The Stones Talk It Over

 I didn’t post my usual blog yesterday, according to my plan to post every other week. But it just didn’t feel right. So I came up with a new plan. I’ll post my reflections on aging every other week, then on the “off week” I’ll post a poem. I’ve plenty to choose from. I may even give you a sneak preview of my upcoming poetry book, Before Our Very Eyes: Poems of the Incarnation.

So, here goes this week’s poem: 

The Stones Talk It Over
. . . if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out. —Luke 19:40

All was quiet
on the street
and in the city hall.
Why are they silent?
a small rock asked
a boulder.
Why don’t the people
praise God?
Don’t they see
what we do?
Doesn’t the light
from the northern skies
strike wonder,
ignite fire
in their bones
as it does in ours?

Beats me,
said the boulder.
Let’s sing.

 

[This scene is part of the Palm Sunday story when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey and the crowds went wild, proclaiming him king. This angered the Pharisees and they told Jesus to make the crowd quiet down. Jesus replied, “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Maybe someday, in the “by-and-by,” we’ll get to hear the stones, along with the trees and the elephants, sing the Hallelujah Chorus. I can’t wait.]

Even leopards give thanks

Yesterday in church we listened to the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers two times. Not that he healed the lepers twice. We heard the story twice, once in Sunday school, and then again in church.

That makes sense. It’s an appropriate story for Thanksgiving week. Ten lepers healed, but only one came back to say “Thank you.” Of course we were then admonished to be that one, not only on Thanksgiving Day, but everyday. To make gratitude a habit. Good advice, healthy for the body as well as the soul.

That story has special meaning to me. Years ago, in a Sunday school, the leader was teaching on the miracles of Jesus. For such an uplifting subject, the class was remarkably boring. The teacher, a good friend, was a college professor in lecture mode, droning on and on. At one point he was reading off a list of all the miracles recorded in the Gospels. I had drifted off when, on the borders of consciousness, I heard him mention the healing of the ten leopards.

That caught my attention. Instantly my imagination went into full gear and I saw an African savannah with leopards and other wild beasts. Jesus was walking among them, having mercy on their conditions.

Then class was over and we filed into the sanctuary for the worship service. I wrote the following poem in the margins of the church bulletin:

The Cleansing

And it came about that Jesus, King, was passing
through the grass lands of Burundi and as he
entered a village ten leopards approached,

slinking between the huts, pad-padding down
the paths on great pudding feet,
ten shadow beasts brought low by mange and

malice came near and said to the King of Cats, 
O Master, Jesus, have mercy on us,
we know if you will you can make us clean,

heal our hide, sharpen our claws, restore our
terror names, and Jesus, Beast, said,
I will, be clean, and straightway the ten

leopards were healed and with leaps and holy
yowls they departed, but one, when he saw
he was healed, returned and crouching purred

his praise, a gravelly grace song, and Jesus,
Cat, twitched his tail
while all the skies of Africa sang.

While the poem was playful, it also turned out to be true. Christ is called the Lion of Judah in the Old Testament and in the book of Revelation. My slip-of-the-ear and the consequent vision presented me with a different perspective on the Gospel. A picture of a cosmic healing Christ who we’ll never be able to completely understand. And a new view of gratitude. I saw a bigger picture of grace and goodness abroad in the world. Writing poems sometimes does that to me.

As we focus on thanksgiving this week, let’s ask for a bigger vision of God and of the grace and goodness of God in our lives, no matter what is going on personally and in the world at large. Let’s be thankful.

If a leopard—or a leper—can express gratitude, so can I.

The women at Christmas

 It’s just a few days before Christmas as I write this. As I prepare my heart, I’m thinking about the women in the Christmas story. A few weeks ago, I reflected on two older women, Elizabeth and Anna. Now my heart comes closer to the center of the story and I think of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Not old. A teenager. A quiet girl, someone who pondered life’s mysteries and respectfully followed the dictates of her faith. She was probably looking forward to marriage and a family, as did all Jewish young women. She would receive those gifts, although not in the way she might have imagined. Her encounter with the angel Gabriel and his strange message is one of the most moving passages in Scripture. The poet Robert Siegel has an interesting perspective of this event, one that gives insight into Mary’s character.

Annunciation

She didn’t notice at first the air had changed.
She didn’t, because she had no expectation
except the moment and what she was doing, absorbed
in it without the slightest reservation.

Things grew brighter, more distinct, themselves,
in a way beyond explaining. This was her home,
yet somehow things grew more homelike. Jars on the shelves
gleamed sharply: tomatoes, peaches, even the crumbs

on the table grew heavy with meaning and a sure repose
as if they were forever. When at last she saw
from the corner of her eye the gold fringe of his robe
she felt no fear, only a glad awe,

the Word already deep inside her as she replied
yes to that she’d chosen all her life.

(--Robert Siegel)

Eight days after the birth, we read that “The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him” (Luke 2:33). One of my favorite passages about Mary is a short one, coming a few years after the birth of her young son as she contemplated all that had been told her about him: “… and his mother treasured all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51). Bringing together the angel’s annunciation, her miracle pregnancy, Elizabeth’s prophecy, the news from the excited shepherds, and now the prophecies in the temple of Simeon and Anna, Mary had a lot to ponder and marvel over. Poet Luci Shaw captures some of what might have been Mary’s ponderings.

Mary’s Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest . . .
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.

His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by dove’s voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

(--Luci Shaw)

Today I’m thinking about Christmas and some of my women friends. I’m especially holding in the light four of my close friends who have become widows in the last few years. Some of the books on widowhood say that after a year, the pain lessens. I don’t know, not yet having experienced this, but my friends tell me that the sense of loss continues, as do the occasional tears. Grief is not easy and swiftly gone. A family-centered time like Christmas can trigger sorrow. 

I’m thinking of a friend who within this passing year has received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. She and her husband are processing it with courage and faith, but not without sorrow as they face the future. Another friend is caring for her husband now in increasing stages of dementia. It’s a hard road to walk as she watches this once vital, creative, and highly intelligent man slowly become another person. Her Christmas will certainly be different than mine. 

I think of the mothers of Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, of those waiting at the Southern borders of our own country, desperate to care for their children. Many of these don’t celebrate Christmas, being of a different faith family, but humanly speaking, they are like all of us.

In prophesying the significance of the birth of Jesus, Isaiah foretold, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (Isaiah 9:2). As Mary pondered these things in her heart, she was beginning to understand this story that is really beyond all comprehension. Something larger and grander than the image of a baby in a feeding trough. 

Thank God for Mary who treasured the hope in her heart. Thank God for the faithfulness of Elizabeth and Anna. This Christmas season, may God’s mercy be near those who grieve, those who are ill, those who care for them, and all those who suffer the ravages of war, eviction, and homelessness. “On those living in deep darkness, a light has dawned.” 

Let it be so.

The old ones in the Christmas story

 The center of the Christmas story is a baby. All other characters circle around him—the young and somewhat bewildered parents, shepherds stunned from the angel choir, a merciful inn keeper, and the animals in the cave that may have intuited with their beastly brains that something unusual was happening.  

Other characters never make it into the creches we put up in our living rooms or out on our streets. These are people who were, in one sense, peripheral to the main events, who came before and after the night of the birth. They were old people. And while their roles may seem secondary, God chose and called these men and women to play an essential part in the story.

Two old men and two old women. Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth enter the stage well before the birth of the baby. Simeon and Anna don’t make their appearances until a week afterward.

Zechariah and Elizabeth were both from the priestly tribe of Levi, and Zechariah served as one of the priests at the temple in Jerusalem. We read in Luke’s gospel that “both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly.” They both also carried a secret sorrow; they had been unable to have children. In a family-oriented culture, this sorrow burned within even into their old age. We read that “they were both well along in years.”

At a high point in the Jewish religion calendar, Zechariah was chosen to go into the temple alone and present the offering of incense to the Lord. It was a holy time, and many people waited outside the temple, praying for God’s forgiveness and blessing.

You know the story. While at the altar, the angel Gabriel suddenly appeared and scared Zechariah half out of his wits. After telling him to calm down, the angel’s message was even more frightening in its utter strangeness. Zechariah and Elizabeth would give birth to a baby who would grow up to become a mighty man of God, part of God’s plan of salvation for his people.

Zechariah’s incredulity was greater than his fear and he responded, “No way! We’re too old!” The angel didn’t bother addressing his doubts; he just struck him dumb. And so Zechariah remained until the birth of the baby John.

I wonder how he explained all this to Elizabeth. He was literate and undoubtedly wrote to her. It didn’t take long for Elizabeth to believe, what with the child growing in her womb. She was secluded for five months, probably due to her advanced age. It would have seemed a precarious pregnancy. But when her close relative, Mary, now pregnant with Jesus, came to visit Elizabeth, the old woman understood, not only about John, but about the child Mary was to bear. She was wise. She responded in praise. Her response greatly encouraged her young cousin who would need it in the days, months, and years to come.

Zechariah also finally got it. At the birth of their son, the couple defied cultural tradition by not naming the child after a father or grandfather. No one in the family was named John, but John it was, according to the angel’s instructions. Then the old man did a very wise thing: he praised and prophesied as the Spirit opened to him the significance of his son’s future ministry in preparing the way of the Lord.

I wonder how this old couple handled John’s strange ways and his leaving home to live as a poor man in the desert. But they were probably dead by the time John reached adulthood. They had fulfilled their role.

Now enter Simeon and Anna. Jesus had been born in a stable, received the visitation of astonished but worshipful shepherds, and now it was time for his parents to take him to the temple for circumcision, according to Jewish law. Eight days old. 

Simeon is described as righteous, anointed by the Holy Spirit. We don’t know his profession, just that he was “a man in Jerusalem.” He enjoyed an uncommon communion with the Spirit, receiving a promise that he wouldn’t die until he saw the Messiah. The Spirit urged him to go to the temple that very day, then revealed which baby was the Holy One. So Simeon did the unorthodox;  he approached the young couple, strangers to him, and took the baby in his arms and praised God. Under inspiration, he announced that the babe would grow up to be, not only the Messiah of Israel, but the Savior of the world. Heady words for Joseph and Mary, grappling with what all these events could mean. Then Simeon blessed them. I’m sure they needed to hear his words, walking them a little closer to understanding. Simeon was now ready to die in peace.

But the story continues. Anna was the oldest person in this Christmas story. Her husband died after only seven years of marriage and she was a widow for 84 years after that. That would make her over 100-years-old. (Some translations say she was a widow until she turned 84. Even that’s old in anyone’s book.) For all those years of her widowhood, her primary occupation was worshipping, fasting, and praying, so much so that some people thought she actually lived in the temple. That day, as soon as she saw the baby Jesus, she knew and “gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.” That’s what a prophetess does. I just imagine Mary and Joseph, taking all this in.

Here's a poem commemorating Simeon and Anna.

Ancient Blessing
Luke 2:21-38; Psalm 92:12-15

Old people have a reputation
for wisdom, but that’s often
not the reality. Alzheimer’s,
dementia, or outright crankiness
can overcome personality in the aged.
In spite of that,
sometimes we are blessed
to know the green leaves
of an ancient tree, taste fruit
that sweetens with the years.
So with Simeon and Anna.
Faithful servants, approaching
death, both lingered on
in the hope of his coming.
Years of waiting met reward
in the courts of the temple.
Filled with joy, held by the child
they held in their arms,
they thanked God, blessed the babe
and his parents, and gave public
witness that has become
a permanent part of the story.
Thank God for the legacy
of such as Simeon and Anna. 

And thank God for using older people. Thank God that he’s not finished with any of us. Age is irrelevant in God’s story. Take heart.