AP

I thought I heard his footsteps faintly like a cool wind rustling through my mind when as a young boy.

Jesus called me by my name;

I heard him whisper it,

The sound of a small voice calling to me glides down the corridor, and startles me from sleep like the boy Samuel.

God bent his bow string long ago and sent his swift arrow flying, cleaving its way through the air- I can show you the place where the voice of the huntsman shot me, piercing my stony heart.

His amazing grace reaches me, finds its mark through the corridors of time drawing heaven into my life, grace’s quiet motions stirring within towards Christ, to give birth to that which did not yet exist and obey him.

There was a kind of peace and ecstasy I can’t describe when Jesus breathed in me his Spirit, his soul engrafting mine, but I don’t know yet the fear of the Lord, the foundation of all true knowledge.

So my battle with Leviathan begins-

My famished heart believes and desires him like the face of the morning, finds a fragment of Christ and devours him for I cannot live without his love.

Christ’s wounds, his melodious beauty, new sensations and emotions are the love letters I have received from him with their vowels and syllables unsealed replacing the tempter’s falsehoods and wizardries.

His cross becomes my alteration, my centre and contemplation, the scheme of new things that change my universe.

I don’t feel like a stranger anymore, I’m a disciple who enters the story of an undiscovered planet.

Jesus is not Socrates or Plato, nor an astrologer, he is more exciting, the Talmud calls him a sorcerer but these are not illusions he performs but miracles. He is Emmanuel, God is with him with that strong love that helps me with my pain.

He is a teller of parables, he is a shepherd with no flute or staff who gathers his scattered sheep, he rains manna on the just and the unjust.

He is my Saviour and Lord.

The lost sheep hear the sound of his voice and recognize him as their Messiah.

When I come to read the Old Testament, I encounter Leviathan again in Job but my heart thirsts and longs to learn more about Jesus. So I shut my eyes and tiptoe in silence into his presence to pray.

I read his speeches and drink his words, his hard sayings and imagine the Israelites who are standing at Mt Sinai to receive the Torah being healed of all their diseases.

His fear and perfect love burns within me. No one instructs me but I simply breathe his gift of loveliness and beauty, all compacted together.

My Jesus, my majesty, my fair muse, does not auction me or use me but is pleased with me.

He bends his pillars of thick light through the lens of his resurrection to reveal his Father’s eyes – I share his self knowing reflection and have a part in his Kingdom, keeping me there by his power forever.

He is a threefold string- He is Father, Son, the Spirit knitted into one, he is meads of bread encrusted with clay and firelight walking about inside the furnace with the three youths,

He is the Word mixed with their faith,

He is the Son of Man piled into a peaceful manger that unbalances and topples my falsities where my intrusive pride strays.

His Spirit drenches my infirmities and comforts me.  I feel my violent soul dismantled as a lion- my substance is full and becomes ready to image him.

I gain unusual and strange strength from crumbs of faith, his truth bleeds and knows my godly jealousies transcribed on my heart, his contentments that hold me fast like an anchor free me from the complications of my hidden lusts.

He is my pole and equator, grace stronger than death, drawn from the vine.

Grace inserts a faith that desires God and not itself, that pays the price for his law and my joy, covers my sin and nothingness,

Tastes the vinegar mingled with gall so I can taste his sweet wine.

He pledges his true heart to mine and takes possession, an unfair vow that guarantees my redemption and makes me one with him.

His will is conjoined with his justice and goodness, his invincible wisdom is revealed and infilled with the light of his infinite holiness. This is the blood and water which I take in and drink at his winepress without striving.

I see God by becoming like him in the centre of my heart’s cry. Musical notes without pitch, rise above his gates, Angels that wrestle with my fears pass through my bones like enflamed petals and catch the tide, the flood,

They carry me to his wedding feast where I sit as a guest and pilgrim. At Peter’s signal, Elohim looks into the face of Jesus at supper to remake the world-

The dinosaurs, a butterfly’s wings and the lightning are imprinted out of his spoken word, like the first day.

He counts the sand of the sea and stars that wink at me in the clouds, in the darkness they reach their arms around me on the inside.

I hear the cock crow, find shelter and share a booth with Jews and gentiles in the holy city. My soul once fearful now takes courage and approaches confidently into the life of Christ and his church for sweet fellowship with Adam and Eve in the garden near the mercy seat and God’s fiery throne.

The last Adam tramples Leviathan, breathes his sameness and restores his soul into a mustard seed which sprouts wings like Jonah and disinherits Eve,

Breaks her secret pact with sin,

Cancels her old covenant with death and weds her to a new glorious Covenant of love,

A union made sacred by a ring of blood and willing heart that gives new birth to children forged in God’s forethought.

God always makes time and empties in himself a space making room for us-

He opens his hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing.

Can you see him? He is the young eagle, suspended with no strings.

Look how Jesus rises from the ground, sweeping up the dust, flapping at the stars, reforging creation’s shape, covering my nakedness with badger skins and fine linen.

His rays disperse outside my Babel tower, transform my soul and body and inflect it from endless death, from the woods of despair to his endless life.

My storm within is quietened.

He chooses to save me from my sin and guilt to his consuming hope.

His secret love and meekness entwine their arms around me transcending what I know, quenching and healing the noise I hear in my head and face.

Jesus says to me, ‘Behold I have carved you on the palms of my hands, you are always before me…Those enemies’ walls that enslaved you shall crumble and fall into ruin.’