Servant

The Heart of Jesus.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

Servant
In the Beginning God’s Creative Word
Spoke in the Darkness,
Serving up light and life in a riotous
Panoply of colors and sounds,
The heartbeat of divinity
Displaying itself to an infant cosmos.

In the Beginning darkness of human sin
A foreign word reigned,
Serving up blame and lies in a cacophonous
Dissonance of feigning deception,
The death-knell of humanity
Displaying itself to a suddenly-aged world.

november-12-98Servant
Destined by his love from before Creation
Word of the Father, woman’s seed
Served up the Promise of a bruising redemption,
Restoration and Victory.
Clothed in the symbols of God’s deliverance
Adam and Eve left Eden still destined by grace for Paradise.

Heeding the Call of God’s mercy,
Prophets populated the land of promise,
Serving God and people with words from God’s own heart.
‘Thus says the Lord’ repeatedly rang out over ears turned deaf—
God’s children ironically turning to attend to mute gods,
No gods at all.  Hubris always displays the result of the Fall.

Servant
Creative Word, Promise-Word, Emptying-Word
Now appeared in human form, not an apparition,
Serving the mystery and being substantively God-Man.
Bruised by death he crushed the serpent, springing again to life,
Delivering us back to the Father’s waiting arms,
We who cling to the Cross, believing and trusting.

God himself knelt before men to wash their feet.
With water and towel he bore uncleanness to clean,
Serving as example for a servant life.
Rising then, he walked the lonely way of cross
And death, simultaneously serving God and man,
Exemplifying the uncharacteristic characteristic of Divine humility.

Servant
Etched across the fabric of discipleship is the echo of Christ
Kneeling, cringing, suffering, dying—a Holy
Serving of God’s own promise, power and purpose.
‘Follow me.’  The voice of Christ constantly calls,
The Word engenders faith and we embrace as
We are embraced, gifts now, ourselves for serving.

In our ever-Beginning moment of life in Christ
We are marked with Cross and bended knee,
Servants moving to the rhythm of God’s song,
A melody to carry the body and soul to
Sabbath, to Shalom, to Shelter in the shadow
Of his wings, and bear us into the world as

Servant

Text and picture, Copyright Don Schatz

About Don Schatz

I am a retired pastor and writer. I enjoy ministries of intentional spiritual practices which help people love and serve God, and love and serve the community. I am convinced such practices evidence the FULL LIFE that Jesus promises and the world needs.