With the cold rapt attention around
the watches of the night I stood back to back with my brothers against the
darkness and the fright. ‘Round the clock we’d talk and watch the flock shoot
the breeze and dream of seas and kings, trees and rings, of all the things
youth and imagination bring slipping away day by day as my beard grew and
the—-did you see that?
Like a coal blown to flame a rolling
stone down it came its intensity immense its resplendency relent less I be
struck down I dropped my eyes from the skies to the hills to the ground. One
shining foot touched the grass at my feet the blooming scent of new life pure
and sweet. A voice full of power and song bade us fear not the light nor the
throng. The angel spoke of a born child today mere miles away who would rend
the foundations of creation and build them anew child born for us whose
name would be spoken in unending chorus.
A child called Immanuel. The
angel spoke His name Her voice rang across the hills and with the echoing reply
came a wave of harmonies that crashed over me as I looked up to see a
million points of light descending from the sky like figs falling from a tree
in the wind that brought a cloud of angels stretching to the horizon and making
a sound so thunderous that the air seemed to shimmer with Glory to God in the
highest heaven the host ascended and the night reappeared like a curtain drawn
to bring peace on earth to those on whom His favor rests.
Only the star remained.
I turned and said
Run my brothers,
We race the sun my brothers
To see the one his mother’s
Struggle’s done clothes cover
God’s son
so brothers we run
I cringed my lungs burned but
I turned on my ball of my foot and dashed through the darkness just enough
light from the star to see how far I’d run how far to go the heavenly glow was
fading fast I had to make it before this moment was past the shadows grew shorter
until we knew we’d found His quarters overhead the star that led us to this
ramshackle hovel-falling down panting this isn’t the place for a grand king.
I stumbled forward into the run-down
structure. His eyes were closed as he lay snug against his mother’s chest his
breathing soft one hand resting on her breast that I’m not supposed to see I
slipped stepped and stuttered out of the room, realizing suddenly that we three
kings of decorum had invaded this family’s intimate space like camel all up in
your face red with the shame I knocked soft on the frame and her voice held no
heat and no blame as she welcomed us to the manger as if we weren’t three
sweaty strangers we could be dangerous but the peace in her voice said she
feared no nightly noise ‘cause God watched her boy.
I moved closer, close enough to
reach out and touch his hand. His eyes fluttered open I had woken him from
sleep He saw me and in that moment I felt like one of my sheep, my past present
and future thrown at his feet. My every trial was known no defeat would touch
this child who would grow to unseat the pillars of men and then He closed his
newborn eyes and went back to sleep I began to weep with joy the world must
know of this boy so
Run my brothers,
Tell everyone my brothers
We’ve seen the one his
mother’s
Struggle’s done clothes cover
God’s son
so brothers we run
My name will never make the
histories but my life’s defined by the mysteries that just confounded Bethlehem
town did you see what I saw can this be the sky wrought with angels and the
child that will shake the world.
