An Advent Poem

The Table

c. 2019 by Cynthia S. Fischer

It is not hard for me
To remember Christ’s suffering.
Via Dolorosa. Adagio for Strings.
His body and blood,
My only food in the Black Days.

When You sent your only
Child with Flesh and Blood and Vernix,
No more to take his hand,
His seat empty.
I never thought about You suffering.

Three NICU babies died here.
Under watch in small glass houses.
“Pseudomonas” they said.
Life milk contaminated.
Perhaps I saw those moms.

Day to day, night to night
They clenched calendars with circled dates.
Their longed-for “Gotcha” Day.
Now keening dreams that will not be.
Their tables bare.

And that Blackest of Days,
Your Son’s body shattered.
Blood poured out.
He died all alone.
Was that your NICU day of death?

I hope those parents find
In all their black sorrows,
Sweet communion with You.
Your Son’s body broken and blood shed.
Tasted their cup, your cup of death.

But for your Blackest Day
The Day of All Suffering,
Wine would not glisten in our weekly chalice.
Bread would not nourish our souls, and
Calendars would never open.

If I squint, I see a circle marking
The Day of the Great Feast.
The table is full. Glasses raised high.
Faintly I hear a lullaby.
Heaven on Earth.

About the poem:

I love G.K. Chesterton’s poem Gloria in Profundis. He cleverly reverses and augments our praise of God at the Incarnation with the words,“Glory to God in the lowest.” Later Chesterton adds,“Outrushing the fall of man, is the height of the fall of God.” Each year these words  remind me not only that God’s ways are beyond our imagination, but that He is a God who “bends down” toward us. He is Emmanuel—our God who lived among us, died for us, was resurrected, and continues to be with us. 

I re-read another wonderful poem, “A Psalm for Christmas Eve“ by Joseph Bayly. He writes, “I will sing praise to the Father who stood on Heaven’s threshold and said farewell to his Son.”

Both of these poems led me to explore what was it like for God the Father to send and be separated from his Son, Jesus Christ.

The Incarnation of Christ is a mystery to us—how God can  be fully man and fully God. Certainly we do not know what it was like for God the day that Jesus became an embryo. But we do know that we are made in God’s image, the Imago Dei. We were designed to image God and surely this includes our emotions. 

Thus, I explored a bit of what it might have been for God to part with his Son. Poems are often possibilities. This is not a theological treatise, but it is a way to revisit the Incarnation, a way to consider anew the story of His coming. I hope for you it is a place to wonder and reflect and to worship our God who gave his only Son for us. 

One more note—I reference the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in my poem. Our granddaughter Emily, spent a week in the NICU here. A month after she left, eight babies in the NICU began to get sick and later three died. Bacteria in the donor-milk measuring system was found to be the culprit and the protocol was changed. It was a tragedy that I still consider when I hold Emily.