On Earth as it is in Heaven
On Earth as it is in Heaven
c. 2023 Cynthia S. Fischer
This is my 2023 Christmas poem. The notes that follow it are helpful.
Part 1
New born to Earth
This man-child.
Come from the dark and hidden place
To be named, to these parents. In this place.
I was there when you rubbed your bare heels in the front yard.
Your back-and-forth feet flew so fast you made mud.
This was The First Dirt.
Too soon, you will learn, “From dust you came, and from dust you shall return.”
I was there when you spied the Eastern Yellow Swallowtail,
sipping on the nectar of the white butterfly bush that grows below the deck.
This was The First Butterfly.
Too soon, you will learn that butterflies fade and die.”
I was there when you felt the big wind blow the leaves swirling in spirals.
This was the First Wind.
I did not say, “Soon, this wind will bring cold and stormy weather.”
Part II
New born to Earth
This God-man.
Come from the glorious throne on high.
To be named Jesus. To these parents. In this stable place.
When You came to your created planet
How did You see the beauty You created?
Did You know the ground on which you crawled was both
Garden and the end of man?
When you spied a sparrow,
did you follow its flight with astonished eyes
and yet know the number of its days?
And when the sky turned dark with storm,
did you sense the weather change and shudder in its wind?
What did your Christ-the-Child eyes know of wonder, beauty, and finitude?
A time would come when you would undo the sentence “From dust to dust.”
It would cost a price never paid before.
You would hang where only creatures deserve to hang.
And die a death only we creatures deserve to die.
And you would rise again, as only one who tramples snakes can rise.
And the earth would break forth anew, as if it had never, ever died.
And the newborn wonder will be the True Wonder.
Butterflies will live forever.
Storms will cease.
And we will live in the New Garden and eat of the Tree of Life.
Note to readers:
Part I
As I observed our grandson seeing and feeling the world for the first time, I wondered what it is to see a cardinal land on a tree limb in front of you, to see this bright red creature of the air fly and land and return to flight again. What goes through one’s mind the first time? And then the notion of imperfection. . . of trash on the ground, of weeds, and insects that can sting? He has no knowledge of that, which is as it should be. Unlike his four-year-old cousin, he has not yet remarked about my age spots or wrinkles.
Part II
I wondered what Jesus saw through his newborn human eyes.
I superimposed all those thoughts on the truth that one day all the evil in this world will be undone. Author and minister Frederick Buechner wrote, “The worst isn't the last thing about the world. It's the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best. It's the power from on high that comes down into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring.“ Buechner adds, “Resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing.”
In other words, if Jesus died on the cross bearing our sins but rose from the dead, then his atoning death actually succeeded in conquering sin and death. There is much to ponder here.
We live between two advents: the first and second coming of Christ, the already of Christ’s gift of salvation to the not yet of the New Heaven and the New Earth, in the Lord’s prayer. It’s the tension of the “already and the not yet.” So we wait and hope and long for his return.