We had no idea

Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” John 1:46:45

We were not expecting the Messiah

to emerge from Hicksville.

We did not imagine that the unloved Samaritans

would provide the hero for a Jewish rabbi’s story.

We could never guess that sinners,

prostitutes and tax collectors

would be named in the first eleven

ahead of those practising good religion.

We are comforted by the order

and predictability of our world

of black, white, wrong, right;

and we are well practiced in the arts of resisting

that which we are not expecting.

We never anticipated that the almighty God,

maker of law and upholder of all virtue,

would tear up the rulebook and scatter its pages

in the winds of grace

No. He took us by surprise.

Just as we had no idea that the Spirit would come

to roar and burn and sweep us up

into the realm of perpetual wonder,

and that, to this day,

she still unsettles us.

© Ken Rookes