Advent 2015 - Day 10

https://www.facebook.com/john.willsea.1/posts/1943786652513209

Wheat

Fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, bread of life, Faithful Ruth, compassionate Boaz, son Obed, grandson Jesse, great grandson David, down to Jacob father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ—bread of life, fill the earth, multiply, fruitful.

Advent 2015 - Day 9

https://www.facebook.com/john.willsea.1/posts/1943332062558668

God Provided Grapes

"Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love"

Numbers 14:19a

How often God provides grapes beyond imagining to me and and I prefer to gnaw grapefruit rind.

Advent 2015 - Day 8

https://www.facebook.com/john.willsea.1/posts/1942960745929133

Commands Written in Stone

Exodus 32:16

"The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets."

Advent 2015 - Day 7

https://www.facebook.com/john.willsea.1/posts/1942567162635158

Joseph's Variegated Coat

When position makes way for God's sovereign plan. 

Genesis 50:18-21

But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. 

Advent 2015 - Day 6

https://www.facebook.com/john.willsea.1/posts/1942219992669875

Jacob's Ladder

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

Genesis 28:16

Advent 2015 - Day 5

https://www.facebook.com/john.willsea.1/posts/1941876229370918

Lamb

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. 

“Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

     – Genesis 22:2

Advent 2015 - Day 4

https://www.facebook.com/john.willsea.1/posts/1941546209403920

Father Abraham

"in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

Genesis 12:3

"The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham."

Matthew 1:1

…and Mary rides one day closer…

Advent 2015 - Day 3

https://www.facebook.com/john.willsea.1/posts/1941216716103536

Ark & Rainbow

Jesus is our ark. Like Noah was, we are invited to enter and be saved from sin's consequences. 

     "But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. . . .  Noah was a righteous      man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God."

     "When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember. . . ."

Genesis 6:8-9

Genesis 9:16

Advent 2015 - Day 2

https://www.facebook.com/john.willsea.1/posts/1940824522809422

Sin is the death of us…

'but your iniquities have made a separation 

between you and your God, 

  and your sins have hidden his face from you 

so that he does not hear. '

                        Isaiah 59:2

Advent 2015 - Day 1

https://www.facebook.com/john.willsea.1/posts/1940404342851440

First night of Advent Jesse Tree 2015.  

Anticipating Jesus—Light of the world

Incarnation

Poem commissioned by my friend and pastor, #MichaelLawrence, for our Jazz Night event at Hinson Baptist Church.

Scarlet On Canvas

The painting starts with scarlet on canvas,

scarlet across a rampant field of white. 

Stroke upon stroke, layer upon layer,

edge to edge and splashing on Heaven’s floor.

Royal blue next enrobes the stretched out skin. 

The mix of colors darkens to purplish midnight hues.

Next a star:  Star Light, Star Bright, first star, Shine Hope.

Here we go again, it's the give-me get-me time of year

again, give-me get-me time.

Buy and wrap, wrap, buy, then buy some more

joy, more peace, Goodwill toward men. 

Strains of hymns drift from shops and malls, radios and playlists,

as Silent Night, Holy Night

rushes into Frosty Santa Chestnuts Jingle Sleighbells. 

In the hustle bustle rustle of all

the bustle rustle hustle I drown in,

I sigh a soulful heave, shut out the noise,

and let myself breathe sadness, loss and grief. 

Christmas in my soul is empty filled up; 

looks candle-lit hearth-and-home inviting,

but is filled up empty, barren, wanting. 

Where find hope when hope despairs,

and love and touch, meaning and purpose, hang their hats on air?

Give-me get-me time again

again, it's the give-me get-me time of year. Here we go!

Pour me hope in a bottle!

Blunt the ache of loss, blur the scalding shame of my failures,

ease my guilt-stained dark day dreams. 

Silent Night star shine bright down on shepherds,

Shine on shepherds, on a hill.  Is it real?

Can it be?  Touch of wonder.  Touch of Grace.

Eternity steps into time for me?

Hope in a bottle cast from heaven's shores. 

A full cup drunk! Bouquet of the aged vine!

Hope in a baby sent from heaven's shores. 

Here we go again again. 

Wrap joy in peace, wrap peace in joy, from human pain is born a boy

swaddled in sovereignty. 

Transcendent resplendence tucked in vulnerability. 

Can it be? Forgiven sin?

I can not believe it is really true. For me. To live. 

Give-me, get-me, give and give. 

The hustle bustle rushes in again. 

Rustle noise hustle noise sets my thoughts a-spin. 

Notes from Holy Night fade to Reindeer flight,

and peace — sweet peace on earth — came down — .

Wee gentle baby, architect of time,

sleeps full and warm, sleeps full of love and warm.

Gentle baby sleeps full of love and warm. 

Painting done; brush laid down and dry. 

Starlight shines on sleeping Son —

born to cry, born to sigh, "Not my will, not my will, but…

Not my will…but Thine… be…done."

Immanuel child, here with us, 

in the silent silent night here with us,

fill our empty space

from edge to edge and splashing on Earth’s floor.

John Willsea 

November 2014

Words

Ten words

Two tablets

One God

Life

Forgiveness

Resurrection

Purpose

Love

Suffer

Joy

Dreams

Colorful coat for Joseph that declares a Father's favor, disgruntles brothers' friendliness, displays a boy's pride that goes before a fall. 

But the fall was purposed by God for the salvation of many. The boy learned dependence on God alone and became the Savior-figure man that God ordained. 

Who will you become by letting God mold and shape you into Jesus' likeness?

Rungs

So Jacob had a dream about a ladder or stairway to heaven. And God spoke to him promises of land, nation, blessing. 

"I will do these things for you."

What an encouragement that God did not say to climb the ladder. He just called for trust, a response of faith. 

The same call to us. 

Provision

A ram caught in the thicket. That was the provision. Hope beyond hope because the son of promise didn't have to die. 

Why did Isaac stay bound on the altar? Why let himself be bound in the first place? How lie calm when the knife is raised for the killing blow? In the hand of his aged father?  Could this be the look of apprehended faith?

Neither would the Greater Son climb off the altar. And the only thicket was the one he wore as his crown. His faith flowed from His Father as love held him transfixed. 

All In

Abraham wasn't even called Abraham when God told him to go.  But he went. A nomad with a tent. And his wife. And his nephew. And all their possessions that they had gathered. And the people that they had acquired.

By faith he obeyed God. Going not knowing where but knowing who and trusting. 

The strength of his trust must have been considerable. All those people went with him in the strength of his faith. All the people. All the goods. The nephew. Most especially the wife. All drawn in the wake of the one man's faith. 

Himself drawn by cords of love from the Star of the Morning. 

Rainbow & Wrath

See a rainbow and somehow wonder always breaks out in applause, even by those who no longer know the story. It's a promise wrapped in a beauty package. 

It's good to recall that it only came after the recreating wrath of God fell against sin. Beauty from the ash-heap of judgment. Inexpressibly magnificent beauty full of glory, lifted up, stretched wide, raised for all to see. 

Bitter

Sweet juicy succulent nutritious delicious beautiful fruit.  Created by God as best of the best. Placed as the centerpiece of all the provisions and delights of the Garden. 

It was all that and more, … but for the worm at its core. 

Even so, the fruit was beyond compare.  So rare in its nature that It almost called out Hosanna's in worship, Hallelujah's in praise. No, there was no spot or blemish, no fault at all in the fruit.  

Even the worm was merely the alluring voice of temptation - judged accordingly and righteously, but in the end only the counterpoint of doubt to obedience. 

At the end of the day, a very long long day, it was faith that was the man's downfall: faith in the wrong words, faith in the lying words, faith that in some wild ill-begotten imagination the created could supplant the creator.

The taste of disobedience was bitter beyond bitter. 

But God planned a better fruit. 

Beginning

In the beginning, God planted a seed, a seed of a thought that was me, a seed of a thought in me that was a vow I gave my Kalamazoo Gal, a seed that became my world.   God does stuff like this. Big stuff. Unbelievable stuff. Beyond reckoning stuff. 

Like taking a girl, a new-minted woman, and giving her the impossible task of mothering to breath the Savior of the world, the creator nestled and tucked into her created creating space. 

Like my world, so her world, so her journey weighted with joy and sorrow and life. The beginning.

Beach Meditations

From: Thoughts For The Quiet Hour

Our hope is not hung upon such untwisted thread as “I imagine so,” or “it is likely”; but the cable, the strong rope of our fastened anchor, is the oath and promise of Him who is eternal verity. Our salvation is fastened with God’s own hand and Christ’s own strength to the strong stake of God’s unchanging nature.

William Rutherford