The Caves of Christ

Christ my Savior,
Your earthly life was lived between two rooms of rock;
book ended by cold, hard, places.
Comfortless caverns
held Your coming in and Your going out.
The first,
the Cave of the Nativity
where You were incarnated;
where a tiny baby took the first breaths of life
in a night saturated with starlight.
In this rock hard bedroom of a child
You were lulibied by angels.
There in it's the dusty air
You were watched by
the adoring eyes of a young mother,
barely more than a child herself,
the bleary eyes of sleepy shepherds,
startled awake by a symphonic sky,
and the wide eyes of burly beasts
huddled together for protection.
Emmanuel,
G-d's perfection touching the
gritty, grimy, real and raw.
This craggy creche, yet cave of hope
saw my faith flicker to life.
Amid the rubble there,
I find such joy, such excitement. such tender love.
But, my Lord,
I know that it's worth to my life cannot be separated
from that of the second,
the stark and solemn cave of death,
the tomb of Joseph of Aramathea;
a cave where stifling, stenching darkness
could not put out the Living Light;
a cave named Empty each Easter morning.
There in Your silent escape of shrouding
my faith finds form.
Even in my fear
I'm drawn to it.
I run with Peter,
my heart pounding.
I stumble in in disbelief,
as a beloved disciple.
Tears fill my eyes like those of Mary
seraching, yearning,
each time I await the pronouncement
of its discontinued use.
Oh, Lord, Your rocky places,
these caves of confession,
are foundations of my faith.
of a very lived reality,
of G-d's enormous and ingenious love.

Millie Mitchmore