Agape With Joy (or Faith's Sojourn)

 

I thought this was going to be a roughly 3-stanza poem, maybe 4.

 But each stanza seemed to pour out another

until the Hallelujah climax! 🎵🙏

Nature keeps eyes agape with wonder!

God keeps faith agape with Truth!

And lest we forget, it is God in nature too!

John 1:3

Through him all things were made; 

without him nothing was made that has been made.

Agape with wonder, faith reveres

God’s dominion, scorned by a foe

Fraught with opinion’s pomp and show

Distorting the order of fears

That dash the piers where mercies flow

How false the gods of carnal man

Perched on a fickle pedestal

That death assuredly will fell

What then, without the cross to span

The gap between Heaven and hell

How can we hear if none will preach

The power of the Living Word

Able to train, correct and teach

To bridge the intangible breach

Between the sinner and his Lord

Wonder is but faith’s shadow cast

Beneath the Gates of Paradise

What waits when death opens our eyes

And today’s Day of grace is past

Man’s noblest thought can but surmise

Timeless, the duty God demands

Of we prone to be puffed with pride

The Bridegroom still charges His Bride

‘To fear God and keep His commands’

To test grand boasts with Self denied

Pray, we remember in our youth

The Creator, before we say

We find no pleasure in God’s Way

And disregard life-saving truth

As to sin’s death-traps we fall prey

Since Jesus walked upon this earth

Centuries rise and fall like waves

Across a world stubbled with graves

Yet held in Hope’s Womb of rebirth

Because the name of Jesus saves

Agape with wonder, we profess

God’s faithfulness, steadfast and true

As we cling to His promises

‘I will not leave you comfortless

For I will come to you’

This is the day the Lord has made

The praise of mortal to employ

The foundation that has been laid

Is Jesus Christ. the debt He paid

Leaves faith's sojourn agape with joy

© Janet Martin

Inspired in part by the poem below...

The Over-Heart

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)

“For of Him, and through Him

 and to Him are all things, 

to whom be glory forever.”

—PAUL.

ABOVE, below, in sky and sod,

In leaf and spar, in star and man,

Well might the wise Athenian scan

The geometric signs of God,

The measured order of His plan. 

And India’s mystics sang aright

Of the One Life pervading all,—

One Being’s tidal rise and fall

In soul and form, in sound and sight,—

Eternal outflow and recall. 

God is: and man in guilt and fear

The central fact of Nature owns;

Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones,

And darkly dreams the ghastly smear

Of blood appeases and atones. 

Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within

The human heart the secret lies

Of all the hideous deities;

And, painted on a ground of sin,

The fabled gods of torment rise! 

And what is He? The ripe grain nods,

The sweet dews fall, the sweet flowers blow;

But darker signs His presence show:

The earthquake and the storm are God’s,

And good and evil interflow. 

O hearts of love! O souls that turn

Like sunflowers to the pure and best!

To you the truth is manifest:

For they the mind of Christ discern

Who lean like John upon His breast! 

In him of whom the sibyl told,

For whom the prophet’s harp was toned,

Whose need the sage and magian owned,

The loving heart of God behold,

The hope for which the ages groaned! 

Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery

Wherewith mankind have deified

Their hate, and selfishness, and pride!

Let the scared dreamer wake to see

The Christ of Nazareth at his side! 

What doth that holy Guide require?

No rite of pain, nor gift of blood,

But man a kindly brotherhood,

Looking, where duty is desire,

To Him, the beautiful and good. 

Gone be the faithlessness of fear,

And let the pitying heaven’s sweet rain

Wash out the altar’s bloody stain;

The law of Hatred disappear,

The law of Love alone remain. 

How fall the idols false and grim!

And lo! their hideous wreck above

The emblems of the Lamb and Dove!

Man turns from God, not God from him;

And guilt, in suffering, whispers Love! 

The world sits at the feet of Christ,

Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled;

It yet shall touch His garment’s fold,

And feel the heavenly Alchemist

Transform its very dust to gold. 

The theme befitting angel tongues

Beyond a mortal’s scope has grown.

O heart of mine! with reverence own

The fulness which to it belongs,

And trust the unknown for the known.

1859.