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A work in progress
The Epic
of Jesus
the
Christ
(We've had epics in the past that tell of heroic deeds of men and
demigods of myth, the earliest sung by poets. In Western literature there's
the Iliad and the Odyssey which scholars believe were composed
by a blind Greek poet Homer. His work served as a model for later writers.
Greek and Roman literary critics laid down rules based on Homer, which
included an invocation, a dignified style and a placement called in media
res (in the middle of things―it didn't begin at the beginning).
The French had an epic called Song of Roland; the English,
Beowulf; the Spanish, Poem of El Cid; and the Germans, the
Nibelungenlied (lied = a song). There's others such as Dante's Divine
Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost. Here's an effort to compose an
epic about the greatest hero of all time, The One Who truly deserves an epic!)
* * * * * *
O help us sing of Christ in story, of Jesus, His Greatness and His Glory! O we of frailed
being, of veiled eyes in seeing. He suffered for our sake
―
not as a demigod of myth
―
but as The God Who
united
Himself to our flesh and kind,
The Savior Who
could've commanded heavenly legions, but instead combated
evil and darkness by His virtuous life and His stunning, heroic
sacrifice. He was the Greek Christos, "the anointed one,"
the Light of the
World,
His coming down to earth was necessitated by the predicament brought about
by Adam and Eve, the first human beings. While Eve was instrumental in what
happened, Adam represented the race, and made a decisive choice for the
race: for
their progeny. Sadly, he disobeyed and its consequences have fallen on us,
something akin a rich man who loses his wealth, and no longer has it it to
bequeath to his descendants.
Creation
It's beyond our grasp of understanding,
How something comes from nothingness;
But for God, His will commanding:
It becomes existent, nothing less.
What He beckons forth into being,
Are the creatures all, we are seeing.
Lo even what we see not:
The unseen that He begot.
With threads sewn unseen,
A body's knit unto a soul:
The two, with naught between,
Together form a whole.
And as God doth bind,
We become our kind.
The creation of Adam, was when
Our earthling race began;
From that moment then,
Appeared His creature man.
While Adam emerg'd from the dust of earth,
Eve differ'd from him, in manner of birth:
From Adam's rib, God did fashion her,
From that part of him, did her life bestir.
From the body's protective bone
That shields the inner us, and heart,
From that costal part, his own,
Came woman, at the very start.
From Hebrew ish the word for man,
Came the word for woman isha:
And from Adam with whom the race began,
Derived the woman, this Eva.
And thus, at the human dawn,
Was she from Adam drawn.
And Adam said of her, there fresh and pure:
She's "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,"
Her beauty in being did Adam allure,
And the heart of him was caught in her mesh.
There in the species morning rays,
She held Adam's aborning gaze.
Eve was created a helpmate to be ,
With intellect, and will made free,
The second of genders God designed,
The pattern fore'er for human kind.
She was a creature very like his own!
And no longer was Adam, a human alone.
The two were set a task to obey:
Eat not a fruit, the Lord did say.
The Fall from Grace
Alas, O woe!
For all our kind
There lurked a peril so,
Upon a limb entwined!
When humanity had just begun,
A serpent spoke, with a forked tongue!
With cunning, sin it sought to enlace,
And knot it to, the human race.
A serpent would the woman deceive:
And lead the woman to misperceive;
Alas, the fruit the woman sadly ate,
Her appetite did sadly sate.
Lo what had taken place,
Was gone was holy grace!
The grace to sanctify
Away from them did fly!
And now, they both'd die.
The serpent tongue,
It spoke to her a lie;
There nigh the fruit there hung,
He tempted through her eye...
That day in Paradise,
She should've looked away...
When sin he did disguise
And led her and Adam astray!
In Adam God had breathed his life in breath,
But now his nostril did scent, the smoke of death.
Like a fruit of a tree, O fallen to earth and spoiled,
With Adam our nature fell, and fallen, was besoiled;
The serpent was delighted, as on the tree it coiled.
Lo Adam could've been fore'er a saint,
But his sin did him and his progeny taint!
O attend! Adam decided for the species,
When he disobeyed God's catecheses.
Alas, his fallen nature we inherit,
And his legacy lost, we must bear it.
'Twas impossible for finite man,
To repair for this offense:
To bridge an infinite span,
So great, and so immense!
The Need of a Redeemer
Still man, would need atone.
Yet in verity, only God alone,
Could suffice to satisfy...
So He came down from High,
To join our race, in Perfect worth,
To mend our plight upon the earth.
The angel Gabriel was assigned
To the special mission to our kind;
With plumed wings flew down to a Virgin Blest,
To a Galilean town, at God's behest.
To a town by the name of Nazareth,
Where words awaited passed from breath,
He announced the Messiah to the Virgin Mary:
That the Son of God she'd conceive and carry.
'Twas like a trumpet's clarion call,
That echoes through the ages all!
She was the perfect vessel who brought
Perfection into the world!
In holiness He was wrapped and wrought,
And from Him Redemption unfurled.
She was The Immaculate Conception,
To crush the devil's deception!
When Mary understood what she'd heard,
She said, Be it done according to thy word.
And in her,
a mortal she,
Into this world, He came to be.
Our Embryonic Lord
And God's own Fetal Son,
Once tied by maternal cord
To her, the Immaculate One.
He was given the
name of Jesus,
―A name that fore'er should please us!
As Eve was instrumental in the Fall,
So Mary was instrumental in saving all.
The Holy Infant's Born
In Bethlehem He was humbly born,
By sheep whose wooly coats are shorn;
He was wrapped, this swaddled Lamb of God,
His tiny toes, His feet unshod.
He was laid in a manger where animals fed,
Prefiguring the Eucharist yet to come!
There laid on a humble bed,
And yet a King, the eternal from!
A sign of nourishment, ours to take,
The Holy One, Who the world did make.
Like the rays of sun that pass,
Through the purest of window glass...
He traversed His mother in such a way,
That a virgin birth in honor we say.
Like through a Nativity window,
In a hushed and holy place,
Appear'd the Savior Whom we know,
His Light ashine and holy Grace.
Perhaps on barley straw, He'd lain
With slender stems of winnowed wheat;
And a few kernels of clinging grain
―This fodder, His royal throne and seat.
The wise men came on camel beast;
These travelers of ancient road,
They came from somewhere East,
And found the King, and gifts bestowed:
Lo, on Him they did confer
Gold and frankincense and myrrh.
They thought the Child surely great,
For such a trip to contemplate.
They'd followed a shining star,
And journeyed from a land afar
As an infant He felt the cold to shoulder
In a cave with cloudlets of animal breath.
As God He knew, when He was older,
He'd undergo a Passion to death.
His suffering fore'er in view:
Of what He would go through.
At Home with His Family
Upon Him the universe doth depend,
Yet upon His mother He trusts His needs;
For Himself He could verily fend,
Yet on His mother's milk He feeds.
Then from Joseph's labor, they trade
For grain to bake a wheaten bread,
With honey to sweeten the morsels made,
To put to mouth, where Truth be said.
Presenting Him in the Temple
They took him to Jerusalem, where
They presented Him in the Temple there:
And
the
glory
of the people Israel.
Yet Simeon also foretold the friction
That would arise from contradiction.
He told to Mary, the Mother of the Lord,
That her heart would pierced be by sword.
The Mosaic Law to accord,
They'd offered two pigeons or a pair of dove.
Yes poor they were, no more afford,
Yet rich with One from up Above.
Jesus Grows
Under the eyes of hearts so true,
Of Joseph and Mary, their Jesus grew:
His parents joyed when He first spoke
And at His smile when He awoke.
They witness when He tries
To catch a bird He sees;
And see the bird as up it flies,
As He crawls upon His knees.
As time goes on, a step He'll take,
And more and more the effort make.
A stone in His path to stumble on,
They'd show Him how to step around,
And clods of dirt that crumble on,
To return to dust of earthen ground.
As a Boy and Young Man
As Jesus older and longer grew
He'd watch as Joseph fashion'd a plow,
To furrow the soil, unbroken through:
He watched as Joseph worked and how.
When He began to take up tool,
He was truly in a carpenter school.
He sawed in Joseph's shop,
With dust a-falling from the wood;
With an axe He'd hew and chop,
Its chips flew nigh to where He stood:
And from a chisel He did wield,
Fell shavings from the wood He peeled.
All of His youth, 'twas wood He faced:
Alas on that, He would be placed.
To Jerusalem at Age Twelve
I n
the shop
were handles
to helve,
To guide a plow the ground to cleft;
Yet,
when in Jerusalem at Twelve,
He thought of other labor left
The business of,
The Father above.
So He stayed behind,
The Father's Will in mind.
His parents missed Him, homeward bound,
And returned in sorrow to find their
Boy;
After three days, He was in temple found;
Their tears, then turned to joy...
He was conversing with the teachers wise,
Who marveled at Him, before their eyes.
Even though His parents felt sad,
In staying back He did naught bad:
But rather the tasks of heavenly Father!
Yet, loath to cause His parents bother:
He went with Joseph and Mary home,
And dwelt with them in Hebrew Shalom.
Baptized as a Man
But the day'd come,
when He
About His Father's business, would be:
When the Baptist stood
at Jordan's flow,
A penitent's baptism to there bestow.
Lo, Jesus came from Galilee ,
To
the river..and
John with Jesus pled:
The baptism ought be done by thee
But Jesus hindered him instead...
For the sake of justice, let it be.
Then obeying Jesus, John
Poured water Him upon.
And after the water was poured,
The Spirit descended upon Our Lord:
In coming down from up above,
He alighted in the form of
dove.
And Heaven's
portal did ope
O'er Jordan's flowing stream;
It was a sign of hope,
For all
who Heaven dream.
The Father spoke that day,
And was heard from Heaven say:
Thou art My Beloved Son
In Whom I am well pleased:
Thus, was manifest the Triune One!
Not something mythic,
like the
Hesperides
―Those of
Grecian tale, the daughters of
the
eve,
Oft said
to dwell
beyond the set of
sun,
The golden apples guarding
from those who'd
thieve...
But heed! The
Trinity isn't mythic spun!
When Jesus was Baptized
there,
We may with Writ
compare:
When the Jordan was parted and pent,
And downstream its water went,
Joshua crossed to the Promised Land!
While
Jesus parted its waters, there to stand,
He showed the way to the Promised Strand
—
To heav'n
— as
round
Him was water broken:
A path of penance and grace, it did betoken.
His Work with Disciples
John told disciples , "Behold the Lamb of God
Who takes away the sins of the world!"
They followed the Savior, sandal-shod,
His work with others, being now unfurled.
And passing by the inland sea,
The shore awash of Galilee,
He saw Peter
and Andrew casting net,
And spoke to these with seine He met,
"Come, follow me, I'll make you fishers of men,"
And farther on He invited once again:
He saw John and James,
the sons
of Zebedee,
At
their nets, its corded mesh there
mending,
They were more of the
Apostles yet
to be...
And they followed, no longer nets a-tending.
He'd come to earth to faith impart,
To stir belief in the human heart.
The Pharisee's asked when the Kingdom,
When he realm of God would come...
Jesus spoke it's in your midst, you among;
They heard it spoken from His tongue.
The Messiah was already reigning, the Son,
The Kingdom of God had already begun!
With faith they could it grasp,
And with justice and love, it enclasp.
The Wedding of Cana
Jesus and His disciples came
To a wedding Feast of Cana fame ,
Mary said to Him,
"They have no wine."
And Jesus responded the hour's not mine;
Yet something
transpired between the two;
She told attendants:
whatever He tells you, do.
Perhaps seeing
what her eyes did impart,
He honored the wish of a mother's heart.
He allowed her to intercede:
To perform a wonder, He then agreed.
Jesus said, the jars with water fill,
And they filled the vessels to the brim;
But wonder of wonder: wine came forth to spill!
--At Mary's request, a miracle worked by Him!
Then Jesus said to take what water had been,
To the steward head of wedding then,
And from whence it came the steward knew
nought
But the attendants knew, 'twas by Jesus wrought.
When the steward tasted the wine,
He said everyone serves the better first,
But told the groom, it's not so with thine;
He saw the order reversed.
In terms of his
taste for thirst
The flavor from the
ripen'd grape that burst.
And time to follow, at Mass the
wine,
Would be
changed
into
the
Sacrificed:
Before we at
Communion dine,
It's changed into
the Blood of
Christ!
What made the tongue of the steward,
wetter,
And
pleasured him so
with its
vinted flavor,
At the Holy
Mass, it's
Infinitely better!
It re-presents
The Infinite
Savior!
He was human born ,
for our sake,
To save
the world that
He enter'd in:
The Redemptive path that Jesus would
take,
The path of suff'ring and dying for
sin.
The Transfiguration
He took His
disciples up the mountain to pray
Where the Testament New would see the Old;
Elijah and Moses did meet
with Jesus that day,
And the Here, the Hereafter did
behold.
"His face shone as the sun," so bright,
His garments like snow, so white.
And for those that Peter did see,
He wished to
sew
a tent,
for the
three
But his request was not allowed,
And they were enveloped in a cloud.
As
Jesus stood transfigured,
two
worlds astride,
The others they
stayed, each to
their side. |
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