Telling a Tale (a Poem)

Speaking stories sweet and smart

Telling a tale to the heart

Starting good but going sour

Sin personified: a city and tower

Truth culminates: a suffering hour

Foretold long ago, right at the start ...

When dew of creation fresh and new

God hovered in Spirit, ready to do

Painting plot and stage which set the scene

Each of our stories sounds a similar ring –

Harmonies to Melody, so angels sing

Weaving one great story – tapestry of a King

This tale of struggle and triumph rings true

Descending down from high above

Walking with mankind: Immaculate Love

Making a covenant each has a part

No man will keep with half his heart

For sin is crouching from the start –

To wreck new life: “olive leaf and Dove”

But our tale is failure of this man

Calculating and cool, pursuing their plan

Ascending the heavens God will not allow

Desiring freedom from Love’s great law

Lies and deception, a stale smell

The situation grave, a deep well

Repercussions endless, black as hell

To steal the show, they think they can

Descending again a theme secure

God comes in day to walk once more

To find man cowering in a corner

Naked, ashamed, demanding cover

From sure wrath to come – a Vengeful Lover!

The Curse is fixed, horror a locked door

But when God descends into our place

Mercy comes to a miserable race

For the tale of failure of mankind

Has a twist to boggle the greatest mind

Promises unconditional, of Glorifying Kind

For the King of all Glory will now give chase

A Seed will come to feed the sheep

And crush the skull of the snake

The promise as garments of a ram

That covered the woman and the man

From the wrath of God and of the Lamb

The promises of God not slow to keep

When temptation comes to act in sin

Remember the promise and that God will win

It is the promise itself that is our life!

Not striving or seeking, willing or strife

The power of God: Bridegroom and wife

To keep us from slipping in pit deep and grim

The rest of the story, Scriptures will say

Must be read in a similar way

Morals and lessons and 10 steps are good

But they’re not the point, if we only understood

It is Christ Himself! ... So if we would

See the beginning as the rest of the Play.

By Douglas Van Dorn

February 1999