The Silence is Broken

I suppose this post title could be apropos to the fact that I haven’t posted anything here for two months.  But actually it’s the title of this poem, which I wrote yesterday as an assignment for my Pentateuch class.  I don’t particularly think I’m a poet, but poetry can be a great way to meditate on things that are hard to capture in prose.  I’ve probably written half a dozen poems in my life, most of which are not worth sharing, but I don’t mind this one.  It’s a meditation on Exodus 3.

 

For four hundred years of silence
They waited for You to speak
They lived out their lives in darkness
With a future endlessly bleak

Their deadlines came and false hopes went
Generations were spent like grass
All still awaiting the promise
When Your word would come to pass

They were burdened beyond strength
But still You allowed yet more
And You extended Your silence
While the groan of their hearts turned sore

And then there appeared a man
Who seemed to be someone great
Yet he failed when put to the test
And obscurity was his fate

You tested him in the desert
For forty years tending sheep
And while their hopes seemed still empty
Your promise was not asleep

There came a day - at last, that day
When You broke Your silence fast
On a day like any other
A mountainside gleamed as he passed

"Moses! Moses!" Your word spoke out
"Take off the shoes from your feet.
For the place where you are standing
Is where God and mankind will meet."

And in those minutes that followed
You opened up Your heart
And earth would never recover
From the fire Your word would start

Now again we wait, as they did
Having learned that You cannot lie
We saw the Cross, the empty tomb
But await the light in the sky

Silence surrounds us, and we groan
But exult in hope as we wait
For from creation until now
Your word never comes too late!