Incarnate – A Poem

Is there any greater mystery than God in glory becoming human in history? It’s not just a miracle, like water into wine. It transcends miracle, and is unthinkable. A spirit putting on flesh. Something larger than life becoming a lesser life form, voluntarily. Something along the order of an animal becoming a vegetable. Or an intangible substance becoming a whole different kind of substance. Choosing to go from a superior being to an inferior being for the sake of the inferior being. The designer taking on the form of the designed. It’s as if…

The speaker becomes the sounding word,

the playwright stoops to the stage,

the author enters his wonder tale,

the binder becomes the page.

The sculptor becomes a marble bust,

the engraver, copper cut fine.

The painter strolls in his landscape,

the builder is the plumb line.

The conductor becomes an instrument,

the cellist, a vibrating string,

the composer, a note in a minor key,

the ringer, the bell to ring.

The baker kneads herself into bread,

the pickler becomes the brine,

the chef is served in a steaming bowl,

the steward bleeds into wine.

The shepherd becomes the gated sheep,

the hunter becomes the hind,

the rider becomes the frothing steed,

the herder becomes the swine.

The blacksmith melts himself to steel,

the reaper becomes the feed,

the farmer becomes the iron plow,

the sower becomes the seed.

The carpenter is nailed to the wooden beams,

the potter is earthen clay,

the mason becomes the stumbling stone,

God-with-us to stay.

To what do we compare this thing?

Love doth Truth embrace,

through labor pains a pregnant world

bears power fleshed by grace.

To what do we compare this thing?

Truth has Love obeyed,

pitching his tent with homeless man,

the maker becomes the made.