"Forever's Start"

On this Christmas Eve Eve, I want to share one final Madeleine L’Engle Advent poem. It’s never made its way onto my blog. I’m not sure why. It’s glorious, and full of the type of mystery that so grabs at my heart during this season. The poem was first published, without a title, in L’Engle’s The Irrational Season. This version, I copied from Miracle on 10th Street. It includes this prelude:

Forever’s Start

The days are growing noticeably shorter; the nights are longer, deeper, colder. Today the sun did not rise as high in the sky as it did yesterday. Tomorrow it will be still lower. At winter solstice the sun will go below the horizon, below the dark. The sun does dies. And then, to our amazement, the Son will rise again.

Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come
In Your fearful innocence.
We fumble in the far-spent night
Far from lovers, friends, and home:
Come in Your naked, newborn might.
Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come;
My heart withers in Your absence.

Come, Lord Jesus, small, enfleshed
Like any human, helpless child.
Come once, come once again, come soon:
The stars in heaven fall, unmeshed;
The sun is dark, blood’s on the moon.
Come, Word who came to us enfleshed,
Come speak in joy untamed and wild.

Come, Thou wholly other, come,
Spoken before words began,
Come and judge Your uttered world
Where You made our flesh your home.
Come, with bolts of lightning hurled,
Come, Thou wholly other, come,
Who came to man by being man.

Come, Lord Jesus, at the end,
Time’s end, my end, forever’s start.
Come in Your flaming, burning power.
Time, like the temple veil, now rend;
Come, shatter every human hour.
Come, Lord Jesus, at the end.
Break, then mend the waiting heart.