The promise to you

 

Haiku for a preacher

Powerful preaching

from one touched by the Spirit;

the man called Peter,

He preaches Jesus,

given over, put to death;

raised to life once more

The assembled crowd

is deeply moved by his words;

ask, what should we do?.

He tells them “Repent!

Be baptised in Jesus’ name;

ev’ry one of you.

You’ll be forgiven

and you’ll receive the Spirit,

be joined into God.

The promise to you

and all who are far away:

Find your life in God!

© Ken Rookes 2023

Pottery lesson

Haiku for re-working

At the potter's house

Jeremiah is impressed

by the potter's skills.

The misshapen clay

is not discarded, but made

into something new.

An image of grace.

The God of second chances

reshapes God's people.

Deserving judgement,

punishment for your evil;

God may yet repent.

Repentance the key;

turn from your evil doings,

God can make you new.

If a blest nation

ignores me and does evil

the blessing is lost.

It is not too late,

people of Judah: turn now

from evil. Do good.

God's like a potter,

shaping for blessing and ill;

it is up to us.

© Ken Rookes 2022

The Baptiser warns

 Haiku of preparation

The Baptiser warns

the crowds who come to hear him.

It is time, repent!

This brood of vipers

come out of fear, to escape

the coming judgement.

Produce in your hearts

and in your deeds, fruits worthy

of your repentance.

Don’t trust in your race

or that you are one of God’s

privileged people.

Share your possessions,

be honest, deal fairly, don’t

abuse your power.

They asked John, Are you

the one who God is sending?

I am not the one.

Not I, but one comes

who will set your souls on fire.

This is my good news.

© Ken Rookes 2021

The good news begins

 

Haiku of commencement

The good news begins

as Jesus, also called Christ,

is waiting offstage.

Voice in wilderness.

Baptiser John, the wild man,

makes the announcement.

The Lord comes! Prepare

to receive him; be ready

to hear his message.

The crowd flocks to John

to hear his repentance call,

to be forgiven.

He is a wild man,

this baptiser; dressed roughly,

living on insects.

Easy to ignore

the impolite, to discard

their uncultured words.

Coming after me

is one far greater; he will

baptise with Spirit.

© Ken Rookes 2020

The Baptiser cries

Haiku of expectation

The Baptiser cries

loudly his words to repent,

and weeps in silence.

In his op-shop clothes

of camel hair, leather belt,

catches them off-guard!

Make ready, he says;

things are changing, a new day

is about to dawn.

You privileged ones,

presuming on your birthrights;

produce fruits of love.

No place for smugness

you who think you have arrived;

you must live justly.

Flee the coming wrath;

produce fruits of justice, and

generosity.

One is coming soon,

with greater, more powerful

words of hope and life.

He will bring judgement.

There is really no need; we

bring it on ourselves.

© Ken Rookes 2019

When the time was ripe

Haiku of anticipation

When the time was ripe

he came. John the forerunner,

preaching, baptizing.

Across the region

his message was heard: Repent

and be forgiven!

In the wilderness

a voice was heard, crying out:

Prepare the Lord’s way!

Metaphorical

earthworks describe a coming,

wond’rous, bringing life.

Paths will be straightened,

mountains and hills made level,

valleys shall be filled.

Rough ways will be smoothed

and all humankind shall see

God’s full salvation.

Get yourselves ready!

Make the most of this new thing

that God is doing!

© Ken Rookes 2018

John the Wild Man

Wild Man John exhorts people to fight within their times against their temptation to believe that they can have the riches of Caesar’s kingdoms and the endless pleasures of the empire and still be God’s people.

John inveighs, calling them a brood of vipers who choose to flee from the real work of preparing the world for God. Repent! he exhorts them, urging them to follow a different drummer – him, and the One who is to come.

... God’s earth has always belonged to all people  – people who have moved across  continents and seas, moved bodies and souls, languages and religions with them. Somehow the church has allowed privatization to encroach upon our minds and our land. And somehow the church has allowed  hospitality for the stranger, the persistent biblical theme, to fall into dishonor among the people of God.

Our flight has been into fantasies that are ungodly at best, demonic at worst. The fight Wild Man John urges is for us to separate ourselves from all of this, in a warfare of repentance, of turning away.

This infested darkness, this bog of angers that has hold of our souls, is the place where the Presence will come. Born into no palace but in an animal’s stall, laid in an animals’ trough, then fleeing from war, the Child and his immigrant family have no papers as they arrive in Egypt, where they live as refugees outside the system, the father working any job he can find, the mother, too.

John’s repentance begins with an acknowledgement that God does not need us. We need God, who insists on joining us together as brothers and sisters, us and all the despised people in the world, this motley crew of religions and pieties.

Just getting to that relationship requires a terrific fight.

Everything else follows on from there."

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/biteintheapple/advent-fight-or-flight/

But unless you repent

The story of Job

was written to show how the innocent suffer.

We ignore it, preferring to believe

that people get the treatment they deserve;

or at least that they should.

The poor are made to struggle

because it's their own fault;

they are lazy and lack our virtues.

The wealthy, on the other hand must be deserving.

The Almighty, we like to assert,

rewards the righteous

and punishes those who are not.

It's a convenient shorthand

that allows us to pass safe judgement

upon our fellow mortals.

Forget Job,

and Jesus, for that matter;

for neither will permit us to indulge the smug comfort

of dismissing the unworthy.

Jesus, in particular,

tells us to stop looking at other people;

and to take a good hard look

at ourselves.

We never asked for that.

© Ken Rookes 2016

The word of God came to John

There must have been a number of them,

words, that is,
that drifted through the ether

to lodge themselves in the cranium of the prophet.

Repent, for one, springs quickly to mind.

It is an unfriendly word,

strident and uncompromising,

articulating its 'holier than thou' attitude

of judgement. Perhaps necessary;

all the same.

Prepare is friendlier;

along with the request

that we actually do something.

Prepare tantalises with its sense of expectation.

Something big is about to happen;

something wondrous and unprecedented.

Borrowing some more words

from the processes of creation

the prophet gets down to business.

The mountains will be razed, he tells us,

and the valleys filled!

Geologically improbable,

at least on the time scale

to which the prophet is working.

How many hundred million years would we need?

Get excited!

the prophet's hyperbole declares;

the Lord, (whoever he or she might be), is coming!

You may be present when she comes,

you may witness his arrival;

you may not,

but the hope embodied in this advent event

will be there for all humankind to see.

So get yourself ready.

Now!

© Ken Rookes 2015