Advent1 - What Did You Expect, John?

Ah John, what did you expect?  I came into your lives to change them, yes, but it is still life that I came to . . . .

Life of the hard things . . . the scary go-bump-in-the-night things . . . the this-can’t-be-right things . . . 

I expected no less . . . you, it seems, expected so much more . . . 

Sorry to disappoint, lad, but you see
this, then, is how it had to be . . . 

Had to be . . . not in the sense of script-already-written predestining divine plotting – nay – 

had to be in the sense of how could it be otherwise . . . 
should I join you in the trenches of it all . . . 
in the love and hurt and wonder of it all . . . 
in the thus has it ever been querying questioning asking demanding of it all . . .

This, lad, is what I came for . . . 
You did not know that God is a mud-wrestler by nature?

They will sing of you, boy of mine . . . the one who stood the Jordan’s banks . . . the wilderness walker . . . the whisperer of nothing and shouter of everything . . . the impatient one . . . my beloved herald . . . go tell John, they will sing . . . and to him, the told and telling one, would I say . . . go ask Jacob – about mud and wrestling and things that go bump in the night . . . 

For then, lad, then, shall you know and understand
then shall you cease your shouting and rest into the singing of me
echoing down the halls of time itself
then shall you, dear boy, be comforted . . . 

Matthew 11.1-19 (NRSV)

Crying Stones

We are the pillow for Jacob’s head . . . the makings of an altar . . . a cairn, a marker of something important happening here . . .the first writing surface . . . we are for beauty and adornment . . . and we are the very bearer of the commands of God to your kind . . . we are something that lasts . . . for a very, very, long time . . .

You use us . . . as a weapon to do each other harm . . . the first hunting tool . . . as a gift . . . yet we slow you down and keep you from planting food where you want to plant it instead of where it just grows . . . you use us . . . to mark boundaries between you and your neighbors . . . we provide an anchor for the roots of the trees . . .

Heated, we are the means of removing sin from your very lips . . . have you forgotten?

We were the roadway for your feet in the Garden of Eden . . . we stand in silence as witness to your injustices . . . we are the raw material from which the children of Abraham are made. . .

You use us . . . as a means of public execution . . . a way to measure distance based on the strength of your throwing arm . . . for the building blocks for your dwellings and places of worship . . .

We are that which will cry out the glory of God if you do not . . .

We are the witnesses of all that has ever been and all that will ever be . . . here before you and surely here long after you . . .

We, the crying stones, are the stuff of the very earth itself . . . if you keep silent . . . we will cry out . . . the earth will tremble with our groanings . . . and the whole earth shall know its God . . .

You are in covenant with us and we with you . . . and here is our promise to you . . . if you do not cry out . . . in love for the God who died for you . . . in sorrow that he would have to . . . in joy that he would . . . if you do not cry out at the injustice which would seek to keep our God fastened to a tree . . . if you do not cry out when crying out is called for . . . if you do not . . . we will . . .