Meditations on Winter.

Betwixt the distant sombre mountains

And the indigo tapestry of night

A beautifully fading orange glow

Displays the dying ecstasy of light.

A single star sits on the far horizon.

In silent silhouette trees stand still and bare.

The darkening night is cold and clear.

 A late bird flaps heavily through the air.

The bleakness of winter is almost here.

Winter arrives, unheralded, unexpected,

Exulting in triumph of darkness and cold,

Touching with icy grip, uttering “Come,

Welcome to my still, quiet, anonymous fold.”

I think of all those consumed by Winter,

The young, joyously dancing in the sun,

Minds too youthful to see beyond the shine

The unknown billions whose race has been run

Stretching back to the beginning of Time.

Cold passes; the eastern sky is red and gold.

The sun rises into a cloudless blue.

Days lengthen, buds blossom and bear fruit.

Life inevitably begins again anew

Its intricate weaving of youth and age.

Children play their absorbed charming games,

Their laughter tinkles, their bright eyes shine.

They grow in laughter, struggle, love and tears

As Earth towards Winter inevitably declines.

Spring is sweet joy. Winter is hard tears.

The child on the knee brings laughter’s relief

But the quiet stillness of the final years

Is to the full heart such deep loss and grief.

Love causes this paradox of pleasure and pain,

This tangled co-mingling of joy and hurt,

This rich complexity that life must bring,

This purest expression of the human heart

Trapping us forever between Winter and Spring.

Dark Winter of Death, in strange paradox

Hope rises triumphantly from your cold.

From you the eye of faith is forced to behold

A world where Winter will be no more.

You liberate the great blessing of hope,

Force dreaming of a world free from woe,

Beyond this turbulent sea of pain,

Beyond sorrow, heartache, sin and death,

To where those you have touched can rise again.

The distant mountains are sombre and black

But stars are studding the velvet night.

In the morning the thick darkness will pass

And the sky will be filled with the glory of light.

Thus each day brings in symbol my treasured gold,

That you arise, O majesty of the morning,

Arise in greater glory than the sun,

To banish the darkness and dispel the cold.

O Lord Jesus, Light, Life, Love, Joy, Peace, come.

7. Peter before the High Priest.

You command be silent about God’s Son.

You threaten to beat us if we disobey

But we have seen the risen Holy One.

This we solemnly swear to you this day.

Your envy nailed Jesus to the cruel cross,

But we do not fear your rod or stone.

What can you do that we would count as loss?

For us power resides in God alone.

Your hollow threats we regard without dread

For we have beheld with our very own eyes,

Jesus, the Christ, alive, raised from the dead,

Which we will declare for the ears of the wise.

Death over Him no longer has dominion.

Nor do you, who are empty death’s minion.

6. Mary Magdalene at the Cross

Bewildered, grieving, numbingly subdued,

Silenced by overwhelming pain and loss,

She watched as the crude, cruel nails were removed

And the limp body lowered from the cross.

The body she helped prepare with stifled cries

And though Passover meant she couldn’t stay

She resolved in three days to early rise

And anoint Him in a more beautiful way.

Through blinding tears, on the third day, before morn,

She saw the tomb empty, then heard His voice,

And upon her it instantly dawned

That He had risen and her heart rejoiced,

Thrilled, surged, beat ecstatically faster

As she fell, clung to Him and cried “Master”.

5. Last Words.

“Finished.” The word, through pain, rang clear,

Though upon the cross He suffered and bled.

“Finished”, He could at last declare

As after the sixth hour He felt life ebb;

“Finished”, but not the anguish of final defeat

From a man soon to die upon a cross;

“Finished” was a life’s purpose complete,

Declaring emphatic triumph, not painful loss.

Finished forever was the curse of death,

Finished forever the anguish of grief;

No longer could the tangled cords of death

Hold those who beheld Him in true belief.

“Finished”, followed by words of trusting merit:

“Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.”

4. Let me not diminish His wonder

Let me not diminish His wonder

By declaring He was God come to earth.

In a woman’s womb a foetus enlarged

Until a virgin brought a baby to birth.

A child, growing strong in spirit and mind,

Became a man who, by the blue lake’s shore

Healed the sick, dumb, lame, grief-stricken and blind.

This man felt for the afflicted and poor, 

This man gave without counting the cost,

This man In Gethsemane pleaded and sighed,

This man bled painfully upon the cross

And this man suffered until this man died.

Ask though to see God in the human race

And I say look then upon this man’s face.