An Ancient Announcement

This was a poem written for our Kfgt Family Christmas Sunday in 2024. Enjoy.

Rooms made for waiting are full of tensions; 
You fight to keep your hope lit, sputtering,
The wick suffering from apprehension.

You say to yourself you’ll have answers soon,
Yet questions and doubts bounce between the walls.
Paint peels down and your mind is a typhoon. 

In that halfway place, sound moves fuzzily
Spirits feel faint, feverish with worry, 
Despair crackles crisply, and hungrily. 

How many times have we let anxiety
Spin our hearts hazy so reliably? 

Yet, we don’t need a second opinion, 
To know sin keeps trying for dominion,
Spattering us like we’re dirtied linens.

Blessedly, we have a Great Physician, 
Who’s peered deep within us, right to our core;
He’s used gentle hands and perfect vision
To diagnose our earthly condition.
It’s something we caught, born on this ill shore. 

“But there’s good news,” He says, eyes set twinkling; 
“I made a way for wellness, for goodness.
Anyone can have it, for an inkling; 
Just accept my Son: Love in all fullness.” 

His manger may be strewn with cheap tinsel, 
But placed within is God in flesh – Holy. 
Since the beginning, He’s NEVER dwindled. 

Whatever has you feeling bedraggled, 
Surrounded by wrinkled up magazines, 
Breathing in air that’s sin-staled, addled…
It can’t compare to what’s behind-the-scenes. 

We’re living amidst a glorious plan, 
Anciently announced, so, so long ago, 
By kings and kids in the Israelite clan. 

Bring Him your aches and fears of all the years, 
For they’re met in Him today – once for all. 
But don’t stop there: lay out your hopes and cares; 
He hears them, like He does each new babe’s squall. 

His hands are gentle, transcontinental, 
Meant to be lived in, tightly held onto, 
For He is so much more than judgmental. 

He is Hope – perfect, unemptiable, 
Limitlessly bright, Light of the world. 
He makes each one of us redemptible. 

Jesus is faithful love, so well embodied. 
No wonder our DNA desires Him, 
Seeking out the joy that was, within us, seeded.

Just as twinkling strings of lights herald Christmas, 
Harbouring hope and good cheer to all who are near, 
We’re called to drape ourselves with His holy business, 
Sharing His steady purpose to all who would hear. 

So remember: any form of desperation – 
No matter the source of all earthly frustrations – 
Cannot erase Hope, who’s there, patient and rooted, 
Ready to spur us, catch us, guide us, and love us. 

Adina de Jong
December 2024