Keith informed us last Sunday that he wasn’t a poet, and his tone of voice implied that he didn’t have much time for it. You might like it if you tried it though Keith, which is the perspective I am trying to keep about football. Today I want to rock your world just a little and present you with a poem and a poet from an unexpected source. You may not know it, but D. A. Carson, Research Professor of NT at Trinity Evangelical Divinty School has a volume of published poetry. Yes, it is true Keith. Pastors, theologians and Biblical scholars appreciate poetry. Carson had a volume of poems published by Baker in 1994 entitled Holy Sonnets of the Twentieth Century. John Donne, who I have quoted before, wrote some amazing “Holy Sonnets” and Carson has used the same form. Carson dedicates the book of poems to Martyn Lloyd Jones, a famous British pastor, known to many, who also loved poetry. So you see Keith, it is all around you. I have never checked, but my guess is that Robert E. Lee liked poetry a lot too. Most old Southern gentlemen did.
Since you will have Christmas, I shall give it to you. I thought that it would be appropriate to offer one of Carson’s poems on the incarnation. His sonnets are grouped in series related to theolgocial themes even. — Imagine Keith, theological poetry. Here is a poem inspired by John 1:
Incarnation: Nine
The opening music of the heavenly spheres
Has not yet sounded, nor has come to light
The texture, intricacy, color-flight
Of cosmos, introducing history’s years.
And yet, already God transcendent sears
The Void with holy splendor, glory bright,
No shadows known, no meaning yet to night,
Sans shade, sans death, sans sin, sans hate, sans tears.
God’s Self-Expression, his own Son, his Word
Joins with his Father, clothed with light of bliss,
I must be getting seasoned in life when I can reflect on several “movements” in modern church life. I can recall the Jesus People era, which in my world gave new fuel to a reaffirmation of the Fundamentals. There has also been the Left Behind, resurgence of the Right, the “seeker sensitives”, the return to the Reformation, and now the “emerging”. I am getting seasick from all this lurching. I need a break, and so again turn to Robert Frost and a pithy poetical observation on change:
Some of our faithful readers will know that from time to time we have offerings of poetry on Fridays. Not everyone, even other elders, appreciates poetry. It is especially heart warming though that 3ABC has a new member whose personal blog is named the once dead poet. Would that all men were like him. He has a penchant for mixing poetry and football, but we will overlook that at the moment. Nobody’s perfect, right Keith? I asked Dustin Butts, keeper of the once dead poet, to suggest something for today, and here is one of his selections:
ON THE RISING OF THE SUN.
Look, look, brave Sol doth peep up from beneath,
Shows us his golden face, doth on us breathe;
He also doth compass us round with glories,
Whilst he ascends up to his highest stories.
Where he his banner over us displays,
And gives us light to see our works and ways.
Nor are we now, as at the peep of light,
To question, is it day, or is it night?
The night is gone, the shadows fled away,
And we now most sure are that it is day.
Our eyes behold it, and our hearts believe it;
Nor can the wit of man in this deceive it.
And thus it is when Jesus shows his face,
And doth assure us of his love and grace.
John Bunyan, also author of The Pilgrim’s Progress
To be known but still loved by others is a basic human need. We speak often of being transparent as Christians. Some may have heard C.J. Mahaney speak this week, and he seems unnaturally gifted at being transparent. Robert Frost has a great poem that describes the complexity of our desires to be known but still remain hidden. There is no reason to think that he was a Christian, but he understood that God himself has both revealed himself and remained hidden.
Revelation
We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone really find us out.
‘Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.
But so with all, from babes that play
At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.
The following poem by John Cennick (1718-55) is a hymn and a prayer. Cennick preached the gospel so fervently that other pastors would complain, when Cennick was in town, that their churches were empty. The Anglican Bishop Rider responded to these critics:”Preach Christ crucified and then the people will not have to go to Cennick to hear the Gospel.” These are great words to think about as you enter the weekend:
Be with me, Lord, where’er I go;
Teach me what Thou wouldst have me do;
Sugest what’er I think or say;
Direct me in the narrow way.
Work in me, lest I harbour pride.
Lest I in my own strength confide;
Show me my weakness, let me see
I have my power, my all, from Thee.
Assist and teach me how to pray;
Incline my nature to obey;
What Thou abhorrest let me flee,
And only love what pleases Thee.
There is not much that I would like to say to introduce the following poem by John Donne. His Holy Sonnets are, for the most part, sublime. Witness his ability:
XV
Wilt thou love God, as he thee? Then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by angels waited on
In heaven, doth make his Temple in thy breast.
The Father having begot a Son most blest,
And still begetting, (for he ne'er be gone)
Hath deigned to choose thee by adoption,
Co-heir t' his glory, and Sabbath' endless rest.
And as a robbed man, which by search doth find
His stol'n stuff sold, must lose or buy 't again:
The Son of glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom he'd made, and Satan stol'n, to unbind.
'Twas much that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more.
It was great to have Matt join in with an offering for poetry Friday. Poetry seems to bring out the urge to blog. Greg blogs the most when poetry is posted. So not to disappoint him, here is my selection for Friday, August 18. I offer what would have been the number one poem read at funerals during the late Victorian Age and through the first half of the 20th c. The poem Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), speaks of the final passage to that land from which no one returns. I don’t know why, but this poem and the 23rd Psalm were staples at funerals. I present it today in light of the passing of our near neighbor 4th Ave. Baptist Church, whose heyday paralleled the popularity of this poem.
Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home!
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though from out our bourn of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
