Cunneda

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Path That Threads

The Way of the cross,
Rightly bourne in thy soul;
Is the only way
Into His merciful balm.
The path that threads
The Garden of Gethsemane,
And climbs to embrace
The Hill of Golgatha,
Alone conducts one,
To the mystery of resurrection,
On that early spring morning;
And onward to
The manyfold sacred glories
Of Ascension Mount.
If we will not
Drink of His cup,
Or be baptized
With His baptism:
We cannot expect to share
In the subtle joys
Of His espousels,
Or the sublime ecstasy
Of His triumph!
Gaze at Him .......;
Cleave unto Him .......;
Partake of Him:
And ye shall not miss
Even one note
Of His everlasting symphony;
Or a single rarefied cation,
In the eternal bliss
That He hath set in motion;
For those chosen to follow
His wondrous, threaded path.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Languid Soul

The languid soul
Breeds diffidence; as surely,
As the decaying oak
Engenders fungus.
In this condition:
Of depressed vitality;
The seeds of challenge,
Which the resolute soul,
In full vigour of the Lord,
Would easily shake off;
Are now fatal.

Raise thy temperature,
My Beloved.
To slay the infestation;
Draw thyself near
Unto the Consuming Fire
Of the Father of Lights:
For a warmer timbor, flowing
Into the life of thy soul,
Will alter the climate
Which dubiety requires
To foster its growth.

For unbelief spreads,
As a glazen frost,
Laying heavily thereof,
Across the meadowland
Of thy soul.
Yet, as the warmer days
Begin to settle in;
The ice must retreat,
And flee a land
No longer suited
For its existence.

Then shall thy heart
Be given a new song;
As in the night,
When holy solemnity is kept;
And the joy of life,
As when one goeth,
With tambor in hand,
To come up unto
The Holy Mountain
Of the Lord,
To rejoice in thy salvation.

Monday, June 28, 2010

The Many

Faith is a quickening Spirit:
Bringing insight.......
And discernment.
Yet the many,
Of religious density,
Betray its absence;
Being oftentimes,
The victim of the sermon;
Instead of an alumnus
Of the Gospel.

He Accepts

God will enclasp
What we commit to Him;
As soon as we yield it.
There is no long interval;
When we let go:
He accepts.

When we come to grief
On His Altar;
We are immediately sealed,
Unto the Lord.
When we consecrate:
He Accepts.

He abideth faithful;
When others stand off,
In mocking voices,
For the acquiescent soul
Answering His clear call:
He accepts.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

All Is Ours

The grace of purity,
And self - control;
Of fervent, effectual prayer,
And understanding in the Word;
Of love for our fellows,
And zeal for God;
Of lowliness and meekness,
Of gentleness and goodness:
All this, and more, is in Christ.
Therefore .......
If Christ be in us;
All is ours as well.
Oh that we would dare to believe it!
And learn to draw on it:
Letting down the pitcher of faith,
Into the deep, untroubled well
Of our Lord's indwelling;
Opened within us
By the Spirit,
Of the Living God.

U.S. government panel now pushing "vaccinations for all!" No exceptions…

(NaturalNews) An advisory panel to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that every person be vaccinated for the seasonal flu yearly, except in a few cases where the vaccine is known to be unsafe.

"Now no one should say 'Should I or shouldn't I?'" said CDC flu specialist Anthony Fiore.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 11-0 with one abstention to recommend yearly flu vaccination for everyone except for children under the age of six months, whose immune systems have not yet developed enough for vaccination to be safe, and people with egg allergies or other health conditions that are known to make flu vaccines hazardous. If accepted by the CDC, this recommendation will then be publicized to doctors and other health workers.

The CDC nearly always accepts the advisory committee's recommendations.

Current CDC recommendations call for the yearly vaccination of all children over the age of six months, all adults over the age of 49, health care workers, people with chronic health problems and anyone who cares for a person in one of these groups. These recommendations cover 85 percent of the US population.

Excluded are adults between the ages of 19 and 49 who do not come into close contact with people in high-risk groups. The new recommendation, if adopted, would close that gap, bringing an end to a 10-year campaign by supporters of universal vaccination. In the past, the advisory committee has been reluctant to recommend universal vaccination for fear that it might produce vaccine shortages that place members of higher risk groups in danger. Yet even with current recommendations, only 33 percent of the public gets vaccinated every year, leaving millions of doses to be disposed of.

The H1N1 swine flu scare of the past year played a major role in the committee's about face, both because the disease killed many people falling outside the current recommended vaccine demographic and because it raised public awareness of and demand for vaccines.

The F Bomb: Ever, or Never Permissible?

When is it maybe OK to drop the F bomb?










Saturday, June 26, 2010

Prayerlessness

Prayer creates its own paradigm:
All progress in prayer is an answer to prayer,
And pure prayer promotes its own progress,
By increasing our power and hardiness.


Worst of all is prayerlessness:
Not to want to pray, then,
Ends in not being able to pray;
Disused by God for lack of seeking Him.


Banned from the Divine table;
Unable to partake of His Spiritual provision,
The hungered falter, dwindle, and die,
Their cry having found no place in heaven.


"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread."
Is true for both physical and spiritual labor:
A Divine constant when in pursuit of both
The life of bread, and the Bread of Life.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Interchange

The loss of God is the loss of everything;
And in having God , we have everything.
His overflowing fullness is our inheritance;
And in nearness to Him, we enjoy that fullness.
He can not speak to us,
But some of that fullness flows in;
We can not speak to Him,
Without attracting His grandeur towards us:
This mutual communion, is that which forms
 The medium of access between heaven and earth.
Man looketh up, and God looketh down:
Our eyes meet; and we are.
In the twinkling of an eye,
Made partakers of the Divine abundance.
Man cries out to God what he feels,
God speaks out to man what He feels:
The finite and the Infinite minds
Thus interchange their sympathies;
Love meets love;
 Mingling and rejoicing together,
The Full pours Itself into the empty;
And the empty receiveth the full.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

A Vision: American Gothic

Now a thing was secretly brought to me, in thoughts;
From a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth on a man;
A shudder of dread came upon me, and in stunned silence,
Did I behold the eagle's wings lifted on the four winds of heaven,
And a Word was accorded it: "Thy way is in the sea, and thy path
Is in the great waters; and thy footsteps are not known to thee."
The waters saw and were afraid, yea, even the deep trembled,
For it was made to stand as a man, and given a truth to feast upon;
Lifting its standard high, it drew everyman, as a beacon in the storm.
Thou hast heartily increased the nation, and not increased the joy;
They joy before Thee soley according to the joy of the harvest,
And as men rejoice when they plunder, and divide up the spoil.
They have not known or understood; for Thou hast shut their eyes,
That they cannot see, and their hearts, that they may not apprehend.
They have left off to be wise, and will not frame their doings to turn unto God;
For the spirit of whoredoms doth dance furiously in the midst of them:
They have not known the Lord, neither have they sought His way of peace.
Fornication, great of flesh, have they committed with all who would,
Increasing their harlotry and lewdness to provoke Him in His anger:
"Thou hast played the whore because thou wast insatiable;
Yea, thou played the harlot with them, and could not be satisfied.
Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? Hath it not been told you
From the beginning? Have ye not understood from the foundations
Of the earth? The axe shall boast itself against him that heweth threrewith!"
Therefore will He stretch out His hand over them to corrupt the land,
That thy yield will not nourish; commotion and anguish will grip thy cities,
As thine abundance flees from thee, as the mist in a mighty wind;
And their power will He dash with a shake of the rock, and a dagger left
In their midst; then will they be delivered up unto them that hate them,
And those who were ashamed of their ways will demand satisfaction.
"Calling a ravenous bird from a distant land, the man that will
Execute My counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it,
I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it."

Monday, June 21, 2010

Fire!

Fire is indeed a word significant of horror;
And yet, for all that, we find a comfort, bringing
A genial blessedness in the soft glow of firelight.
The life we know, could not exist as it does,
Without the sturdy toil of this compelling giant.
Even the direful wildfire, with its intended destruction,
Also enriches, consuming dross, thorns, and rubbish;
So that there might be a clearer more vibrant revelation
Of the enduring; over which it has not the force of power.
Our God is a consuming fire; both dreaded, and sought:
To those locked in transgression, it is the synonym of terror;
Yet to the called out, a source of comfort, light, and purity.
For when we yield unto Him; open our hearts fully to Him,
He becomes, within us, that same urgent, consuming fire,
Burning ever so deeply into our hidden inner most regions;
Seeking, compelling all that tries and grieves Him to yield,
Unto the blinding holy intensity of His enfolding grace,
That our whole being might begin to serve only Him,
In knowledge, righteousness, and holiness through Yeshua,
Who came into the world of men to kindle this Sacred Fire.
Beatifically, we may be said to dwell with devouring fire,
And to walk and breathe amid the eternal burnings.

"And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and and His
Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and
Devour his thorns and his briers in one day."

The Subtle Self

Obliquity of vision ....... the spiritual squint,
Hinders in our discernment of God's will
Which would otherwise be clear as noonday.
Carefully, diligently, consider and search thy heart;
For though delivered through the grace of God,
We are yet liable to the subtle working of the self,
Even in our holiest, most reverently sublime hours,
It poisons our motives, and spreads a foul decay,
Whispering seductive flatteries into our pleased ears,
While it turns our step and spirit from Its holy purpose;
As a small matter of iron turns the compass needle.
So long as we harbor some thought of advantage,
Or to gain the praise and commendation on men;
It is not possible to clearly see His will and purpose.
The door to self must be closed with resolution
If we are to hear and attend the still, small voice.
All cross traffic must be excluded from our hearts,
If we are to truly behold His Urim and Thummin
Brighten with God's yes, and darken with His no.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Veil: A Short Haiku

Nay, it is not the
Inadequacy of the finite,
To fully conceive

Of the Infinite,
That most calamitously
Hides His love from us:

Yea, our dark, arrant
Profane nature dulls our eyes;
Quelling Divine Light.

Each sin is a bid
To push off and forsake God;
Silencing His call.

Small sins seem harmless:
Yet an opaque veil is woven
Of very fine thread.

Watchmen: Oscillation On The Edge

Oh Lord! How long shall I cry out and they will not hear?
How long will Thy fields mourn and Thine herbs wither,
For the wickedness of them that infest and consume therein?
Mine eye grows sluggish and wears of exhaustion,
And all my members languor, and are as a shadow;
I am warn away in Thine enemy's constant barrage:
Have mercy on me Lord, for my soul is consumed.
I stand; to all appearances, a stranger in the land;
Out of joint; out of harmony with the planned symphony;
The only one to be judged hungry in the feast of man.
All of Thine other living things strive only to be conformed
To their place, and the place they fill is sufficient for them;
Why Oh Lord do I yet contend, knowing I cannot belong?
Even the motes that gather in the morning sunbeam,
And life most minute, are one to the brim of their capacity.
Yet I stand here, a sad and solitary stranger, a lone crier;
Acquainted with grief, saddened by failure, torn with desire.
Falling prostrate, my flesh cries out for the Living God,
And my soul doth break in the longing for Thy healing touch.
Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and renew me
With the balm of Thy Spirit; for the morrow is soon afoot;
And Thy fields ripen, even while under biting assault.
Then came the small, reassuring voice of the Holy One:
'I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy
Wounds, saith the Lord, because, for Me, they made thee
An outcast, whom none desire, and no man seeketh after;
I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which
Thou shalt go; and I will guide thy steps with Mine eye;
For the storm cometh soon, and My fields cry for gathering.'
Renewed, restored, and reinvigorated by and in His presence,
My Spirit at once cried out, "Here am I Lord, send me."

Friday, June 18, 2010

Oil Spill

I just listened to the best show on the Gulf oil spill that I have heard anywhere on Vyzygoth's show. Give it a listen; you'll be glad you did. Here is the link:


Wednesday, June 16, 2010

In Him

We live and breathe a faith pored in the life of One;
We rest not in atonement, but in Him who made it;
Not in the death, but in Him who died;
Not in the resurrection, but in Him
Who rose, ascended, and ever liveth;
Not in the many statements about Him,
But in Him of whom they are made.
Thy faith may not bare conscious rapture;
It may yet be as timid as the woman's touch,
Ever so lightly on but the hem of His garment;
As small and focused as a mustard seed;
Or as desperate as Peter's panicked cry,
On that stormy night, "Lord save, or I perish!"
Erenow if the deepest yearnings of thy soul,
Be Christ ....... Christ ....... and only Christ,
He will be that Singular Thread that guides
Through this dark passage, and into the light of life.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Exuberance

There is no life like this!
To know that God is with me;
That He will never lead
Through any place too dark or narrow,
For Him to pass alongside.
To be beset by Him: behind and before;
At peace; covered in His hands.
He could be no nearer to me now,
Even if I were in heaven itself.

"And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord,
It shall rejoice in His salvation.
All my bones shall say,
Lord, who is like unto Thee?"

Monday, June 14, 2010

Consecration

We are His by many ties and rights;
Yet far too few recognize His Lordship:
Though willing enough to accept Him as Savior;
We seem to hesitate to make Him King.
Here, we forget, God has exalted Him
To be Prince, as well as Savior:
And the Divine order is not to be reversed:
Consecration is indispensable to blessedness.
I pray thee, lift Him onto thy throne of life;
All things will flow into harmony and peace.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God,
And all things shall be given unto you:
So shall His Light break onto thy path,
As the flare of sunlight that brightens the forest floor.
Yea, "thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall
Thy moon withdraw herself, but the Lord shall be
Unto thee an Everlasting Light, and the day
Of thy mourning shall be ended.

Isaiah 53 - Complete

Who Hath Believed? --- Isaiah 53; Part 1


The aging prophet, gray, and a little disheveled;
Slowed perceptively in the pace of his words:
There were murmurs; and an uneasy grumbling;
Haltingly; purposefully, he lowered his head,
And slumped his shoulders in prayerful resignation.
The message is given: a true and faithful account,
Yet few there were who would give it acceptance:
"Who hath believed our report?" he prayed.
For he knew; the awesome loftiness of the mystery,
Would require a faith only the few could receive.
Most would recon it folly, exceeding all capacities.

"But that He had done so many miracles before them,
Yet they believed not on Him:
That the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be
Fulfilled, which he spake,
Lord, who hath believed our report?
And to whom hath the Arm of the Lord been revealed?"

The Power of God, and His plan unto salvation,
Be hidden in plain sight from the generality of men:
Though externally clear and visible to all,
Yet not internally revealed and made known.
"And to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed?"
It is written that all are called unto salvation;
Even so, the external voice is of no avail to most.
The sagacity of their own mischievous understandings,
Cannot attain, or even ascertain the promise:
For none come to Him save by epiphany of the Spirit,
Whereby the secret of  Messiah is revealed.

"For many are called, but few are chosen."
"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,
An holy nation, a peculiar people;
That ye should show forth the promise of Him
Who hath called you out of darkness,
Into His marvelous Light."


A Tender Plant --- Isaiah 53; Part 2


"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem
Of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots."

He shall sprout up in a bleak, depleted land,
Humble, lowly, unnoticed among the community;
To the naked eye; in danger of being crushed under foot,
Destroyed by frost, or washed away in floods.
Yet, in the eye of God, He shall be highly exalted,
And greatly esteemed as the beloved only Son:
Growing upright and blameless before Him: a tender plant.
His advent shall not emerge from the flower of creation;
But as a root in the desert; jarring the course of nature,
Formed and fashioned in a field untouched by earthly rains.

"Therefore, the Lord Himself shall give you a sign;
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
And shall call His name Immanuel."

The common expectation was that He would come:
A man of great charisma and much prowess;
One who would catch the eye, inflame the heart,
And transform the expectations of all.
But he will have not the elegance or polish admired by men:
A gangly sprig, without verdue, leaves, or blossom,
Nothing extraordinary, beautiful, or agreeable to see.
There is no glowing majesty, nor signs of it in Him:
Raised by coarse parents in an abject province,
He dwelt in a humble cottage, and labored as a tradesman.

"He was in the world, and the world was made
By Him, and the world knew Him not."



Despised And Rejected --- Isaiah 53; Part 3


"But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men,
And despised of the people."

He was tirelessly renounced for the meanness of His birth;
Openly ridiculed for His hapless externality in public life,
Whilst privately reviled for unmasking the seducing gall,
Being pumped like excess bilge from the Temple mount.
Authorities despised Him for the balm He bestowed;
While tending to the lost with all the easy, gusty plainness
Of an old country shepherd husbanding his cherished flock;
Thus, they rejected Him as one unfit for the foundation stone.

"And He beheld them, and said, 'What is this then that is
Written, the stone which the builders rejected, the same
is become the head of the corner?'"

As the Paschal Lamb, one ordained unto sacrifice,
He accepted and drank the bitter cup of pain and sorrow:
For all His days are sorrows, and His travail grief;
Yea, His heart taketh not to rest in the night.
In disgust and revulsion did all eyes dance afar.
And did the heads avert their gaze and all turn away;
In deprecation, unable to see, in this one broken man;
The Fountain of Life pledged unto a bereft and broken world.


"He came unto His own, and His own received Him not."


Smitten Of God --- Isaiah; 53; Part 4


"That it may be fulfilled, which was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet,
Saying, Himself took our infirmaties and bare our sicknesses."

Effectuation through miracles, is albeit a full spiritual parable
Of the impact of the deeper fulfillment of His redemptive intent:
All sickness has an intimate connection to the fallen soul;
As it is also with the grief and sorrow that life gathers;
For the healing act absorbs the bitter draught of the abject heart,
And heavy, therefore, was the weight of the affliction He bore.
For He knew and transported all in the bond of deliverance;
So by the power of the unparalleled sympathy of pure Grace,
The gall of the load is shifted unto Him; onto His shoulders.

"In all their affliction, He was afflicted"

The same measure meted out to Job by his friends,
Was again allotted and administered unto Him,
At the impulse of the very same doctrinal prepossession;
Measuring the sin of the sufferer by the suffering he endures.
'He must have been of great evil portent to suffer so';
The always rough and ready verdict of the self righteous.
They presuppose that only transgression begets affliction;
However, in this place, the transgressions are of others,
Yet the withering blows and affliction are allotted to Him.

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust,
That He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh,
But quickened by the Spirit."


With His Stripes --- Isaiah 53; Part 5


"For He made Him to be sin for us,who knew no sin;
That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."


Wounded: as one pierced by lance and spike;
Bruised by fist, reed, and the drub of the muted whip;
Chastised by thorns, spittle, mocking, and public humiliation:
The soul is aroused and evoked by the seen here presented,
For this is not simply an innocent man, overwhelmed
In a tidal flood of evil unleashed by the iniquity of others;
The blow that wounds is struck directly, purposefully at Him,
That in Him, the cosmologic rupture of rebellion is mended;
And through Him a way has been opened to heal the breach,
To end transgression, make an end of sin, and to make
Reconciliation for iniquity, and avail it to all who will.


"Who, His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree,
That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness:
By whose stripes ye are healed."


Gone Astray -- Isaiah 53; Part 6


"I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek
 Thy servant; for I do not forget Thy Commandments."

The simile of a scattered flock paints an arrant picture:
The universality of  transgression; the solitude of sin;
Its divisive impact and its distinctive rejection of control.
All have wandered along paths of their own choosing;
Becoming separated, and isolated in small grazing groups,
Or individually exposed, entangled in the high brambles:
Some are unwilling, but all are unable to return to the fold;
For there is none recognized to collect; to defend; and to guide.

"I am the good shepherd, and know My sheep,
And am known of mine."

Iniquity and its penalty were caused to light on Him;
Not merely a sin offering; He became sin for all:
The vicarious embodiment of the aggregate sin of all mankind;
Not sins in the plural, for the sin of the world is one.
Thus, the chosen are not simply renewed and made righteous;
We are reborn! Crafted into the very righteousness of God.
In ourselves, scattered; In Him, gathered together;
By nature, we wander; In Him, a Way is provided;
In Him is our recovery procured; and woe averted.

"I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth
His life for the sheep."


Silent Sufferance --- Isaiah 53; Part 7


"I was dumb, I opened not My mouth; because Thou didst it."
"Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered,
He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously."


He was early bade answerable; a voluntary surety for the many;
Close satisfaction was, from ancient times demanded; and sternly exacted:
Though He had commanded the clouds of glory from above,
And walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire;
He humbled Himself and became obedient even unto death;
His lips opened only in brief witness, never in complaint,
To others who had no standing, He spoke nothing at all.
The gaze fixes on His silent sufferance: pure manifest meekness;
To bespeak His love for the famished in a desolate world,
And for the joy that was formerly set so clearly before Him,
He openly, even willingly, assumed the burden and satisfied the demand.


"I will keep My mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before Me.
I was dumb with silence, I held My peace"


Cut Off --- Isaiah 53; Part 8


"Saying, God hath forsaken Him: persecute and take Him;
For there is none to deliver Him."

As a lamb bound for slaughter, was He grimly shuttled,
From curia, to the council of elders, then unto Caesar;
Hurriedly handled in the fell of night, beset by focused steel.
No crier was sent out to arouse a witness of exemption;
No weeper, wailing urgently, led His death procession,
Seeking mercy and quittance, as was the custom;
In His humiliation at foul hands; judgment was detracted:
An unjust death by illegal violence under the mask of law.

"Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought
False witness against Jesus, to put Him to death"

In great solitude of bitter encumbrance was He consumed;
As He had lived--misapprehended and despised--so He died:
Cut off out of the land of the living; yet not for Himself.
A deep cry of agony rent His soul and pierced the air,
As the appointed burden was cast fully upon Him,
And the Love in which He lived turned away in censure;
He was consumed and drained as a pool in the desert:
Delivered; stricken; to make atonement for transgression.


He Made His Grave --- Isaiah 53; Part 9


"Then answered all the people, and said,
His blood be on us, and on our children."


The elders thereof are filled with violence;
The inhabitants of the city have spoken lies,
And their tongue is deceitful in their mouths.
To His righteousness He held fast and did not let go;
His heart did not reproach Him as long as He lived;
As the crimson gates of doom were opened unto Him,
And He passed through the doors of the shadow of death.

"I should have been as though I had not been;
I should have been carried from the womb to the grave."

His place was assigned among sinners and the condemned;
Yet He abhoreth all in the congregation of evil doers,
And God surely will not permit Him to rest with the aberrant;
For the wicked are ashamed, and are silent in the grave.
The Father in Heaven will not forsake His Anointed One:
'His days are preserved forever, in glory, at My right hand;
But the seed of the wicked shall soon be cut off.'

"Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen
 Clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury."

Yet did the overruling providence of Almighty God
Bear witness unto His Servant and certify His testimony,
By appointing that He should be highly esteemed in death:
Carefully; so tenderly; and mournfully was He prepared,
For rest in a noble tomb amidst an honorary garden.
Forasmuch as, without any trace of deceit in His mouth,
Did He set before them the way of life, and the way of death;
And neither did His lips drink of the wine of violence.

"Have mercy upon Me, Oh Lord; consider My trouble which
I suffer of them that hate Me, Thou that liftest Me up
From the gates of death."


The Mystery Of Messiah --- Isaiah 53; Part 10


"Awake, Oh sword, against My shepherd, and against the man
That is My fellow, sayeth the Lord of Hosts: smite the shepherd,"

The mystery of Messiah interprets the types and shadows of the law;
That sacrificial system bore witness to the needs of men's souls,
And prophesied of One in whom these would be met and satisfied.
He is sacrifice; yet, in the divine paradigm, He is priest also;
His stroke slaying the offering; ....... His soul being the offering;
And He both offers and receives in concurrance with Divine will.
Yet the distinctive essence of His sacrifice is attained only
In prayerful contemplation of the cleansing power flowing from it;
The pleasure taken by the Lord in bruising Him is a mystery,
Only until we partake of the bounty revealed in His redemptive act.

"His seed also shall I make to endure forever, and His throne,
As the days of Heaven."

Death hinders not the produce of His seed; but is the cause for it,
By His quickening will He procure unto Himself a people;
For a seed and a remnant shall believe on and serve Him,
And the Lord shall account them unto Him for a generation.
Of the increase of His consolation there shall be no ending;
He asked only life of Thee, and Thou gavest it to Him,
His dominion is of everlasting and it shall not pass,
And His Kingdom is ageless, neither shall it be destroyed.
In Him, at Thy pleasure, are mercy and truth united,
And through Him, have righteousness and peace embraced.

"Behold My servant, whom I uphold; Mine elect, In whom
My soul delighteth; I have put My Spirit upon Him:
He shall bring forth judgment to the gentiles."




Satisfied --- Isaiah 53; Part 11


"As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness:
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness."

To satisfy the desolate estrangement of rebellion;
To recapture and reclaim the determined waste ground,
And cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth:
This was His Divine charge from ancient times of old.
He shall behold all of the works of His hands;
Weighing the anguish and desolation of His soul,
The breach is healed; the seed is spread: all is satisfied.

"Also I will make Him My firstborn, higher than the Kings of earth."

All who are drawn to Him and the power of His resurrection;
And who come to partake in the fellowship of His sufferings,
Overcome with weeping, and with many supplications:
Are conformed into His death; and transformed into His life.
In Him shall all the seed of Israel be justified before God;
And by His grace, made heirs to the sure hope of eternal life;
That He should become the firstborn among many brethren.

"Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all
Iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people,
Jealous of good works."



Dominion --- Isaiah 53; Part 12 and Epilogue
"Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance
And the uttermost parts of the Earth for Thy possession."

Because He endured and suffered the day of His humiliation;
Thou makest Him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands;
Yet the oil and the wine are with Him in His high place:
For sacrifice and intercession are the foundation of His Kingdom.
In everlasting righteousness, will He exercise authority;
And He shall reign as High King and as High Priest forever.

"For He testifieth,'Thou art a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek'."


Epilogue:

Look ye once more at this sorrowful, yet majestic figure,
That rises, strangely blended, before the prophet's eye:
Sinlessness and sorrow; God's approval and God's affliction;
Rejection and rule; death and life; humiliation and dominion.
Listen; Hear the last echos of the prophet's lonely voice,
As it dies in our ear, 'He bore the sins of many';
Then hearken how another voice later takes up the ring,
But instead of pointing ahead, down the centuries,
Points to one at his side and cries, 'Behold the Lamb of God!'
Look heavily at that life; at that death; at that tomb;
At that resurrection, that authority, and that intercession:
And ask thyself, 'Of whom speaketh the prophet?'

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Dominion --- Isaiah 53; Part 12 and Epilogue

"Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance
And the uttermost parts of the Earth for Thy possession."

Because He endured and suffered the day of His humiliation;
Thou makest Him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands;
Yet the oil and the wine are with Him in His high place:
For sacrifice and intercession are the foundation of His Kingdom.
In everlasting righteousness, will He exercise authority;
And He shall reign as High King and as High Priest forever.

"For He testifieth,'Thou art a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek'."


Epilogue:

Look ye once more at this sorrowful, yet majestic figure,
That rises, strangely blended, before the prophet's eye:
Sinlessness and sorrow; God's approval and God's affliction;
Rejection and rule; death and life; humiliation and dominion.
Listen; Hear the last echos of the prophet's lonely voice,
As it dies in our ear, 'He bore the sins of many';
Then hearken how another voice later takes up the ring,
But instead of pointing ahead, down the centuries,
Points to one at his side and cries, 'Behold the Lamb of God!'
Look heavily at that life; at that death; at that tomb;
At that resurrection, that authority, and that intercession:
And ask thyself, 'Of whom speaketh the prophet?'

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Satisfied --- Isaiah 53; Part 11

"As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness:
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness."

To satisfy the desolate estrangement of rebellion;
To recapture and reclaim the determined waste ground,
And cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth:
This was His Divine charge from ancient times of old.
He shall behold all of the works of His hands;
Weighing the anguish and desolation of His soul,
The breach is healed; the seed is spread: all is satisfied.

"Also I will make Him My firstborn, higher than the Kings of earth."

All who are drawn to Him and the power of His resurrection;
And who come to partake in the fellowship of His sufferings,
Overcome with weeping, and with many supplications:
Are conformed into His death; and transformed into His life.
In Him shall all the seed of Israel be justified before God;
And by His grace, made heirs to the sure hope of eternal life;
That He should become the firstborn among many brethren.

"Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all
Iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people,
Jealous of good works."

The Mystery Of Messiah --- Isaiah 53; Part 10

"Awake, Oh sword, against My shepherd, and against the man
That is My fellow, sayeth the Lord of Hosts: smite the shepherd,"

The mystery of Messiah interprets the types and shadows of the law;
That sacrificial system bore witness to the needs of men's souls,
And prophesied of One in whom these would be met and satisfied.
He is sacrifice; yet, in the divine paradigm, He is priest also;
His stroke slaying the offering; ....... His soul being the offering;
And He both offers and receives in concurrance with Divine will.
Yet the distinctive essence of His sacrifice is attained only
In prayerful contemplation of the cleansing power flowing from it;
The pleasure taken by the Lord in bruising Him is a mystery,
Only until we partake of the bounty revealed in His redemptive act.

"His seed also shall I make to endure forever, and His throne,
As the days of Heaven."

Death hinders not the produce of His seed; but is the cause for it,
By His quickening will He procure unto Himself a people;
For a seed and a remnant shall believe on and serve Him,
And the Lord shall account them unto Him for a generation.
Of the increase of His consolation there shall be no ending;
He asked only life of Thee, and Thou gavest it to Him,
His dominion is of everlasting and it shall not pass,
And His Kingdom is ageless, neither shall it be destroyed.
In Him, at Thy pleasure, are mercy and truth united,
And through Him, have righteousness and peace embraced.

"Behold My servant, whom I uphold; Mine elect, In whom
My soul delighteth; I have put My Spirit upon Him:
He shall bring forth judgment to the gentiles."

Saturday, June 12, 2010

He Made His Grave --- Isaiah 53; Part 9

"Then answered all the people, and said,
His blood be on us, and on our children."


The elders thereof are filled with violence;
The inhabitants of the city have spoken lies,
And their tongue is deceitful in their mouths.
To His righteousness He held fast and did not let go;
His heart did not reproach Him as long as He lived;
As the crimson gates of doom were opened unto Him,
And He passed through the doors of the shadow of death.

"I should have been as though I had not been;
I should have been carried from the womb to the grave."

His place was assigned among sinners and the condemned;
Yet He abhoreth all in the congregation of evil doers,
And God surely will not permit Him to rest with the aberrant;
For the wicked are ashamed, and are silent in the grave.
The Father in Heaven will not forsake His Anointed One:
'His days are preserved forever, in glory, at My right hand;
But the seed of the wicked shall soon be cut off.'

"Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen
 Clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury."

Yet did the overruling providence of Almighty God
Bear witness unto His Servant and certify His testimony,
By appointing that He should be highly esteemed in death:
Carefully; so tenderly; and mournfully was He prepared,
For rest in a noble tomb amidst an honorary garden.
Forasmuch as, without any trace of deceit in His mouth,
Did He set before them the way of life, and the way of death;
And neither did His lips drink of the wine of violence.

"Have mercy upon Me, Oh Lord; consider My trouble which
I suffer of them that hate Me, Thou that liftest Me up
From the gates of death."

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Cut Off --- Isaiah 53; Part 8

"Saying, God hath forsaken Him: persecute and take Him;
For there is none to deliver Him."

As a lamb bound for slaughter, was He grimly shuttled,
From curia, to the council of elders, then unto Caesar;
Hurriedly handled in the fell of night, beset by focused steel.
No crier was sent out to arouse a witness of exemption;
No weeper, wailing urgently, led His death procession,
Seeking mercy and quittance, as was the custom;
In His humiliation at foul hands; judgment was detracted:
An unjust death by illegal violence under the mask of law.

"Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought
False witness against Jesus, to put Him to death"

In great solitude of bitter encumbrance was He consumed;
As He had lived--misapprehended and despised--so He died:
Cut off out of the land of the living; yet not for Himself.
A deep cry of agony rent His soul and pierced the air,
As the appointed burden was cast fully upon Him,
And the Love in which He lived turned away in censure;
He was consumed and drained as a pool in the desert:
Delivered; stricken; to make atonement for transgression.


"But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were
Yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Monday, June 7, 2010

Silent Sufferance --- Isaiah 53; Part 7

"I was dumb, I opened not My mouth; because Thou didst it."
"Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered,
He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously."


He was early bade answerable; a voluntary surety for the many;
Close satisfaction was, from ancient times demanded; and sternly exacted:
Though He had commanded the clouds of glory from above,
And had walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire;
He humbled Himself and became obedient even unto death;
His lips opened only in brief witness, never in complaint,
To others who had no standing, He spoke nothing at all.
The Gaze fixes onto His silent sufferance: pure manifest meekness;
To bespeak His love for the famished in a desolate world,
And for the joy that was formerly set so clearly before Him,
He openly, even willingly, assumed the burden and satisfied the demand.


"I will keep My mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before Me.
I was dumb with silence, I held My peace"

Gone Astray -- Isaiah 53; Part 6

"I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek
 Thy servant; for I do not forget Thy Commandments."

The simile of a scattered flock paints an arrant picture:
The universality of  transgression; the solitude of sin;
Its divisive impact and its distinctive rejection of control.
All have wandered along paths of their own choosing;
Becoming separated, and isolated in small grazing groups,
Or individually exposed, entangled in the high brambles:
Some are unwilling, but all are unable to return to the fold;
For there is none recognized to collect; to defend; and to guide.

"I am the good shepherd, and know My sheep,
And am known of mine."

Iniquity and its penalty were caused to light on Him;
Not merely a sin offering; He became sin for all:
The vicarious embodiment of the aggregate sin of all mankind;
Not sins in the plural, for the sin of the world is one.
Thus, the chosen are not simply renewed and made righteous;
We are reborn! Crafted into the very righteousness of God.
In ourselves, scattered; In Him, gathered together;
By nature, we wander; In Him, a Way is provided;
In Him is our recovery procured; and woe averted.

"I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth
His life for the sheep."

Sunday, June 6, 2010

With His Stripes --- Isaiah 53; Part 5

"For He made Him to be sin for us,who knew no sin;
That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."


Wounded: as one pierced by lance and spike;
Bruised by fist, reed, and the drub of the muted whip;
Chastised by thorns, spittle, mocking, and public humiliation:
The soul is aroused and evoked by the seen here presented,
For this is not simply an innocent man, overwhelmed
In a tidal flood of evil unleashed by the iniquity of others;
The blow that wounds is struck directly, purposefully at Him,
That in Him, the cosmologic rupture of rebellion is mended;
And through Him a way has been opened to heal the breach,
To end transgression, make an end of sin, and to make
Reconciliation for iniquity, and avail it to all who will.


"Who, His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree,
That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness:
By whose stripes ye are healed."

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Smitten Of God --- Isaiah; 53; Part 4

"That it may be fulfilled, which was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet,
Saying, Himself took our infirmaties and bare our sicknesses."

Effectuation through miracles, is albeit a full spiritual parable
Of the impact of the deeper fulfillment of His redemptive intent:
All sickness has an intimate connection to the fallen soul;
As it is also with the grief and sorrow that life gathers;
For the healing act absorbs the bitter draught of the abject heart,
And heavy, therefore, was the weight of the affliction He bore.
He knew and transported all in the bond of deliverance;
So by the power of the unparalleled sympathy of pure Grace,
The gall of the load is shifted unto Him; onto His shoulders.

"In all their affliction, He was afflicted"

The same measure meted out to Job by his friends,
Was again allotted and administered unto Him,
At the impulse of the very same doctrinal prepossession;
Measuring the sin of the sufferer by the suffering he endures.
'He must have been of great evil portent to suffer so';
The always rough and ready verdict of the self righteous.
They presuppose that only transgression begets affliction;
However, in this place, the transgressions are of others,
Yet the withering blows and affliction are allotted to Him.

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust,
That He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh,
But quickened by the Spirit."

Despised And Rejected --- Isaiah 53; Part 3

"But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men,
And despised of the people."

He was tirelessly renounced for the meanness of His birth;
Openly ridiculed for His hapless externality in public life,
Whilst privately reviled for unmasking the seducing gall,
Being pumped like excess bilge from the Temple mount.
Authorities despised Him for the balm He bestowed;
While tending to the lost with all the easy, gusty plainness
Of an old country shepherd husbanding his cherished flock;
Thus, they rejected Him as one unfit for the foundation stone.

"And He beheld them, and said, 'What is this then that is
Written, the stone which the builders rejected, the same
is become the head of the corner?'"

As the Paschal Lamb, one ordained unto sacrifice,
He accepted and drank the bitter cup of pain and sorrow:
For all His days are sorrows, and His travail grief;
Yea, His heart taketh not to rest in the night.
In disgust and revulsion did all eyes dance afar.
And did the heads avert their gaze and all turn away;
In deprecation, unable to see, in this one broken man;
The Fountain of Life pledged unto a bereft and broken world.


"He came unto His own, and His own received Him not."

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

A Tender Plant --- Isaiah 53; Part 2

"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem
Of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots."

He shall sprout up in a bleak, depleted land,
Humble, lowly, unnoticed among the community;
To the naked eye; in danger of being crushed under foot,
Destroyed by frost, or washed away in floods.
Yet, in the eye of God, He shall be highly exalted,
And greatly esteemed as the beloved only Son:
Growing upright and blameless before Him: a tender plant.
His advent shall not emerge from the flower of creation;
But as a root in the desert; jarring the course of nature,
Formed and fashioned in a field untouched by earthly rains.

"Therefore, the Lord Himself shall give you a sign;
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
And shall call His name Immanuel."

The common expectation was that He would come:
A man of great charisma and much prowess;
One who would catch the eye, inflame the heart,
And transform the expectations of all.
But he will have not the elegance or polish admired by men:
A gangly sprig, without verdue, leaves, or blossom,
Nothing extraordinary, beautiful, or agreeable to see.
There is no glowing majesty, nor signs of it in Him:
Raised by coarse parents in an abject province,
He dwelt in a humble cottage, and labored as a tradesman.

"He was in the world, and the world was made
By Him, and the world knew Him not."

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Who Hath Believed? --- Isaiah 53; Part 1

The aging prophet, gray, and a little disheveled;
Slowed perceptively in the pace of his words:
There were murmurs; and an uneasy grumbling;
Haltingly; purposefully, he lowered his head,
And slumped his shoulders in prayerful resignation.
The message is given: a true and faithful account,
Yet few there were who would give it acceptance:
"Who hath believed our report?" he prayed.
For he knew; the awesome loftiness of the mystery,
Would require a faith only the few could receive.
Most would recon it folly, exceeding all capacities.

"But that He had done so many miracles before them,
Yet they believed not on Him:
That the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be
Fulfilled, which he spake,
Lord, who hath believed our report?
And to whom hath the Arm of the Lord been revealed?"

The Power of God, and His plan unto salvation,
Be hidden in plain sight from the generality of men:
Though externally clear and visible to all,
Yet not internally revealed and made known.
"And to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed?"
It is written that all are called unto salvation;
Even so, the external voice is of no avail to most.
The sagacity of their own mischievous understandings,
Cannot attain, or even ascertain the promise:
For none come to Him save by epiphany of the Spirit,
Whereby the secret of  Messiah is revealed.

"For many are called, but few are chosen."
"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,
An holy nation, a peculiar people;
That ye should show forth the promise of Him
Who hath called you out of darkness,
Into His marvelous Light."