Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44
Presented November 28, 2010, by Joel Kline
The First Sunday of Advent
I can’t say when, I don’t remember how, but along the way in my early years of schooling, I gathered the clear sense that I was anything but a poet! Not only did the message come through, loud and clear, that I could not write poetry; even more, I became convinced that I could not read poetry nor grasp its message.
And so it has been more than a little surprising, in recent years, to find myself drawn more and more to the language of poetry. Perhaps it stems from my decision to focus, some years ago, on the experiential, on my personal journey of spirituality—particularly my practice of an annual five-day silence retreat, in which, through journaling, I found myself on occasion actually writing lines of poetry. But even more, I suspect, it has been the discipline, through some 35+ years of ministry, of immersing myself in biblical studies. Who can read the Scriptures without recognizing their poetic quality? The noted Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, for example, describes the writings of the prophets as displaying “poetic passion and stunning imagination.”