Wise men from the East

Wise men from the East

Haiku of adoration

Wise men from the East,

so an old story tells us,

came seeking a king.

A child has been born

who will rule over Judah;

we have seen his star.

In Jerusalem

they make their inquiries.

Herod is alarmed.

Those who have power

become anxious at the thought

that they might lose it.

Calling a meeting

of the chief priests and the scribes,

Herod seeks answers.

Bethlehem, they say.

According to the prophet,

Bethlehem’s the place.

Go to Bethlehem,

and when you do find the child

come, report to me.

They locate the boy,

bow down in adoration,

and give him their gifts.

Gold for a king’s crown

frankincense to worship him,

myrrh for his dying.

Proving their wisdom

the men, having found the child,

choose a new way home.

© Ken Rookes 2018

Census

haiku for losing control

As the story goes

Augustus and his minions

decreed the counting.

A census gives us

the needed information

to order our world.

Numbering people,

keeping control and power,

imposing taxes.

The count brings the man,

along with his pregnant bride

south to Bethlehem.

But in this baby

God upends all creation;

here is the promise.

Humble mum and dad,

common tradesman and his wife;

folk the same as us.

Find them a stable,

a shelter for giving birth.

How appropriate.

No fancy cradle;

he can sleep in a feed trough,

there among the straw.

Invite some shepherds,

poor and lowly witnesses;

they’ll proclaim his birth.

Something about God

spurning grandeur and power;

these are good stories.

© Ken Rookes 2017.

Tales of wonder

Haiku of uncertain destination.

The tale is dodgy,

its historicity doubtful,

but still we wonder.

Driven by a dream

they seek the child of promise,

born to be a king.

They came from the east,

a vague description, at best;

those men of wisdom.

No maps, GPS,

their star takes them all the way

to Jerusalem.

They call on Herod;

(where else would you find a prince

but in a palace?)

Herod takes advice,

sends them off to Bethlehem;

asks to stay informed.

The child is threatened

by this late development.

God's plans are at risk.

Finding the infant

they offer their gifts: the gold,

frankincense and myrrh.

The gifts are laden

with meaning and importance

for a future king.

Having paid homage,

the pilgrims return eastward,

give Herod a miss.

The nations have seen,

the threat will be overcome;

the story rolls on.

© Ken Rookes 2017

Dealing with dark forces

haiku of ambivalence.

When light is coming

the dark forces congregate;

seeking to destroy.

A classic story.

The child of blessing, threatened,

survives the danger.

Like Moses, floating

on the river, the baby

lives to overcome.

Herod, the despot,

becomes his first enemy.

Will not be the last.

The angel returns

with a warning and advice:

Take the child and flee.

The land of bondage

becomes the place of refuge.

History reversed.

Back in Judea

the story is less pleasant.

Evil has triumphed.

The years pass, as does

the danger. The family

return to their land.

They choose Nazareth

in Galilee, to the north.

There they make their home.

© Ken Rookes 2016

They came

They came,

according to one ancient story,

looking for a child;

they found one in Bethlehem.

Leaving their gifts with the family

they shot through, back home to the east;

conveniently dropping Jerusalem,

and its palace, from their return itinerary.

They might have guessed that the old king

would get somewhat angry

when he discovered the broken promise.

Still, they’d be out of the country by then;

so would the boy, with a bit of luck,

not to mention some timely dreaming

on the part of his dad.

But for all the other families

in the little town of Bethlehem,

there were no sweet dreams,

just a nightmare.

With the easy wisdom known as hindsight,

it would have been better for everyone

had the men we call wise,

not made the trip at all;

their gifts were of little consequence,

and even yarn-spinner, Matthew,

didn’t manage to weave them

into the rest of his story.

© Ken Rookes 2013

Micah from Moresheth

Micah from Moresheth,

in the region of Judah,

gave us Bethlehem as the location

for the birth of the Messiah.

Perhaps he stopped by at the little town

on his one-day journey to Jerusalem

to do his prophecy thing.

He posed a challenge for gospel writers,

Luke and Matthew:

how to arrange for Jesus from Nazareth

to be born in Bethlehem, three days to the south.

For the one, it was a census; for the other,

fear, a massacre, and the return to a new home

after refuge in a foreign land.

For the one, the drama of a stable birth

with flights of angels and bewildered shepherds.

For the other, a fearful escape

and the vulnerability of refugees.

They each give us reason to pause

and reflect upon the strange purposes

of an even stranger God.

I wonder, if Luke was writing today,

might it be the homeless and the hopeless,

camped beneath a bridge, who would be

the subjects of the angelic invitation?

I wonder, if Matthew was writing today,

would he write of the kindness

of the people-smugglers

who helped the Holy family

reach their place of welcome and safety?

© Ken Rookes

Massacres of the innocent

In his birth stories, gospel writer Matthew

gives us the terrible tale sometimes called

The massacre of the innocents.

It seemed plausible at the time of writing;

this callously brutal act, ordered

by a despotic monarch

for the sake of preserving his kingship.

In more recent years

historians and scholars

have dared to ask the question:

did it really happen?

They point to a shortage of corroborating evidence

beyond the scriptures;

along with the Moses story,

and the need to solve

the Bethlehem – Nazareth conundrum.

Traditionalists, of which there are a few,

point to the character, or lacking,

of Herod the Great, a ruthless tyrant

who would tolerate no limitations

to his pursuit of power.

Without doubt he was capable

of ordering such a terrible deed,

as have been so many kings and rulers since.

In the last hundred years

there has also been no shortage of tyrant:

dictators who have cruelly

oppressed their own people,

tribal leaders who express their hatred

with guns and machetes,

presidents and Prime Ministers

who declare bloody, high-tech war,

on the slimmest of pretexts.

Few have dared

to directly target children,

but  these little ones have borne

more than their share of suffering.

Historical considerations aside,

it is good that this Christmas text reminds us

how the small, the innocent, the weak

and the vulnerable, have so often

paid the price demanded

by the wealthy and the strong.

And still do.

© Ken Rookes

© 2010  Ken Rookes

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Interpreting the story

Gospel writers Matthew and Luke

are the approved suppliers

of the raw materials

from which we cobble our Christmas stories

together; faith being the thread that seeks,

gathers and ties the meaning.

The angels speak of the wonder

of the aching God who decides to take action

and to embrace uncertainty.

The girl-woman, Mary,

is a sign of human obedience

and willingness to let God’s perplexing purposes

take their unpredictable course.

Her carpenter husband, Joseph,

in determining to proceed with their marriage,

shows the persistence of human compassion

in the face of bewildering embarrassment.

And the baby, strange and vulnerable,

tells us of the mystery of divine love

found, unexpectedly and riskily,

among us.

So, what of the fat man in the red suit,

intruding uninvited into our neat nativity?

Perhaps he is God, laughing.

© 2009 Ken Rookes