Skip to main content

Foretelling

Voices...

A clamour of voices, echoing down through the centuries.
I hear them -
some gentle as the call of a dove, some resounding like the blast of a trumpet -
all as familiar to me as my own.

 What do they say?
They speak of peace, of hope, of reconciliation...
of violence and suffering...
of power and mercy.

 "A man of sorrows" says one
and "my beloved son" says another.
"A day of judgement" yet "the comfort of Israel".
One cries, "Behold your King!"
another whispers, "the servant of all".

They will not let me go, these voices.
The one of whom they speak is coming soon - I know it, I feel it.
His footsteps are on the way, his time is near at hand.

 And I?  They speak of me too.  I am to be the last.
"A voice crying in the wilderness" - that is my task.
As I am foretold, so I foretell.  I gather all these voices into one:

"Prepare ye the way of the Lord!"

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
    make his paths straight.’”
Matthew 3:1-3
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The democracy of theology

Who gets to decide what God is like? I am the way, the truth and the life (Image: Pixabay) Well, God presumably has a pretty good idea. The rest of us struggle a bit more. So where do you get your theology from? Who tells you what God is like? And who do you believe when they tell you? I'm asking these questions because I recently read At the Gates , which I reviewed here . It made a lot of useful points about disability and the church. But it also, I noticed, had a very particular view of theology. Once again, I was glad I'd previously read Models of Contextual Theology , because I was able to pick up a few assumptions that the authors of At the Gates were making. I didn't feel that I totally disagreed with these assumptions, but I wasn't sure if I agreed with them either. So I'm using this post to explore them further. Assumption 1 A disabled person's lived theology is just as important as an academic person's theology This generates two opposing reaction
Post a Comment
Read more

Limestone Way: quirky churches and cave houses

Enough theological reflection - let's go for a walk! Toby joined me for the two walks between Mayfield and Thorpe, via Mapleton and Ashbourne. My old phone finally died, so I was enjoying the capabilities of my new one, including a much better camera and the ability to plot routes on the OS Maps app. Walk One It was the first day of Toby's summer holidays, so I'd promised him a milkshake en route . We parked in Mayfield, went past the primary school, and climbed the hill to rejoin the Limestone Way where I'd left it last time . Very soon we came across Lordspiece Farm, which had what looked like a little shed on wheels outside. The sign said "Honesty Tuck Shop". One part of it was a freezer stacked full of ice cream! It was very tempting, but we'd hardly walked any distance, and we had those plans for milkshakes. We reluctantly closed the door and moved on. The farm dog had a bark much bigger than its body - it was a tiny thing! We continued across some f
Post a Comment
Read more

At the Gates: Spiritual Formation Book 14

"A church with an accessible culture makes sure a diverse community can participate in everything they do. That's not a burden on a church - it's a cultural shift that benefits everyone." "This is a book about justice." So reads the first sentence of At the Gates: Disability, Justice and the Churches . Written by Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson, who are themselves disabled, At the Gates  draws on interviews with dozens of Christians with disabilities to put together a picture of how they have been treated at church. In the book, the interviewees are called storytellers . All too often, the stories tell of lack of access, hurtful comments, and unfounded assumptions about their abilities and faith. This, the authors describe as ableism  - an ideology that gives power to those who are able-bodied and neurotypical, while regarding others as deficient. What is the book about? The first part of the book covers the issues that disabled people have in havin
Post a Comment
Read more