Reflections on Luke: 1:1 - 4

This is the first post of a long-term project: I want to work my way through the whole of Luke's gospel, passage by passage, as a set of reflective poems -- not a theological commentary, per se, but as a set of personal responses. Some will be direct reflections on the text, others will be my own reactions to the text. Anyway, I will doubtless refine the project further in the writing of it!

So here is the first, based on the first 4 verses:

1: 1 - 4

Most excellent Theophilus, I write

A full account, most structured and most sound,

Of a particular man, a known place,

In a particular world, the world you know,

And it shall blow that world to smithereens.

You wanted facts? Dear Sir, I give you facts:

Of miracles, of wonder and of awe.

The lame that walk, the blind receive their sight,

The deaf now hear, the very lepers cleansed,

The broken and forgotten are set free,

And death, yes death itself, is overcome!

Is that enough? Then Sir, I give you more,

(And all checked out most very carefully):

And I will talk of angels and of songs,

And wisdom that did not come from this world,

And teaching that would melt a heart of stone,

If stones had ears, and, through these careful words,

A scholar’s words, the facts, Sir, just the facts,

I pray that you will see the face of God.

I pray that you will see what I have seen,

That you will see the glory that I know,

And taste, with tears, the wonder and the joy,

The mercy and the promise and the love:

See God Himself come down as mortal man

And make a way for man to come to God.

My dear Theophilus, meet Jesus Christ!