Jehovah buried,Satan dead

"Jehovah buried,Satan dead" by e.e. cummings

Jehovah buried,Satan dead

do fearers worship Much and Quick;

badness not being felt as bad,

itself thinks goodness what is meek;

obey says toc,submit says tic

Eternity's a Five Year Plan:

if Joy with Pain shall hang in hock

who dares to call himself a man?

go dreamless knaves on Shadows fed,

your Harry's Tom,your Tom is Dick;

while Gadgets murder squawk and add,

the cult of Same is all the chic;

by instruments,both span and spic,

are justly measured Spic and Span:

to kiss the mike if Jew turn kike

who dares to call himself a man?

loudly for Truth have liars pled,

their heels for Freedom slaves will click;

where Boobs are holy,poets mad,

illustrious punks of Progress shriek;

when Souls are outlawed,Hearts are sick,

Hearts being sick,Minds nothing can:

if Hate's a game and Love's a F---*

who dares to call himself a man?

King Christ this world is all aleak;

and lifepreservers there are none:

and waves which only He may walk

Who dares to call Himself a man

*That was my own edit; didn’t want bad words on my blog

My current favorite poem. It belongs in a sermon, the kind like lightening and thunder and cool, torrential, saving rain I pray one day to preach.

“Jehovah buried,Satan dead” is such a pithy yet complete summary of the gospel. Old Awful Jehovah—awful in Rudolf Otto’s sense of the numinous, of the sacred which fascinates us yet terrifies us—is buried. Jesus is fully God and fully human, and for that eternal moment of Good Friday, buried. And on its heels, bursting forth, with no space for a comma: Satan is dead!

But we worship Much and Quick, slavishly devoted to our computers, iPhones, microwave cooking. We conflate status quo with obedience to God, and like Soviet comrades under a Five Year Plan remain tethered to the great oppressive machinery of productivity, of busyness, for things which are not God’s things.

This is what man does. Who, then, dares call himself a man?

If we call Jews “kikes,” and only one Jew can save us…

We are all liars screaming for truth.

All slaves to sin, as Paul says, too.

Hate is our game.

We shriek in the name of Progress, not the coming kingdom, the only progress that will ever matter or endure.

We equate love with a bad word starting with F, most commonly thought of as happening in bathrooms and couches during raucous frat parties. “Love” that begins with that big F only seeks its own pleasure, and happens not just in frat parties but everywhere opposed to the extravagant, healing grace of Jesus Christ.

So we are, to use the technical theological term, screwed.

Yes, I know, I’m very punny.

King Christ this world is all aleak;

and lifepreservers there are none:

and waves which only He may walk

Who dares to call Himself a man

We are wretched, broken, illustrious punks of Progress. But King Christ dared to call himself one of us. Fittingly, this is the only stanza of hope, and Jesus is our only hope, the only one who can cross the stormy waves, the Atlantic oceans in our hearts, between one another, between what we are and what we are meant to be.

Yes, one day I’d like to preach with e.e. cummings.