The River of Life.

For the First Sunday in Advent - Year A (Matt 24:36-44)
God of the unexpected moment,
bringing form out of chaos;
separating light from the dark;
breathing life into your human creation;
enliven our hearts,
fill us with your expectant Spirit.
Break in on our world
like a flood, like a thief.
Separate the day of the age to come
from the night of our human darkness:
come in your unexpected hour.
-- Jeff Shrowder


For the Second Sunday in Advent - Year A (Matt 3:1-12)
(in Haiku form)
One voice
telling the world,
"The kingdom is quite near":
shouting, out in the wilderness
"Turn now".

Who shouts
"Prepare the way"?
Who calls the world to change -
and seeks to have it turn around
to God?

This sharp,
prophetic, voice
which calls, is sent from God;
a messenger for him who is
to come.

How then
shall I prepare?
Joining in pious haste,
those leaning on ancestral faith
long past?

No, Lord:
let me reflect
the way you dwell in me:
living outward, bearing your fruit
each day.
-- Jeff Shrowder


For the Third Sunday in Advent - Year A (Matt 11:2-11)
Liberating God,
break into the prison which we build
around the life you give us.
We are busy and expectant,
preparing to celebrate;
too busy to heed the cry of the Share Appeal,
the Smith Family, the homeless young
and others we would push aside.
We are busy and expectant,
preparing to celebrate again the birth
of the one who would bring good news
to the blind, the lame and the poor;
preparing to celebrate again the birth
of one pushed aside,
into a cowshed, out of the way.
We too, are blind and lame and poor...
Restore us, healing God.
-- Jeff Shrowder


For the Fourth Sunday in Advent - Year A (Matt 1:18-25)
We journey through Advent,
with our expectations and hopes;
our reasonable and ordered lives
conforming to the social boundaries
set layer by layer around us.
You confront us, O God,
with events and circumstances
which are not what they seem,
and we are disturbed
by the prospect of embarrassment,
of public disgrace.
Yet in this shame,
is wrapped your hope for the world,
God with us,
in an unexpected way.
-- Jeff Shrowder


For Christmas Day
Light shining
in a darkened cave:
cloth bindings carefully enfold
new life.
A borrowed birth place declares
"Christ is born!"

Light shining
in a darkened cave:
cloth bindings carefully folded -
lifeless.
A borrowed burial chamber declares
"Christ is Risen!"

Loving God,
thank you for the Christ child,
thank you for the risen Christ,
in whom you have shown
that you cannot bear to be separated
from a world that would separate itself
from you.

That nothing can separate us
from your love,
we give you thanks and praise. Amen.
-- Jeff Shrowder