your new news

The pain is palpable,
          death is close,
the bruises are countless,
                 and we are not comforted.
We know about steel against flesh,
           and explosions next to skin,
           and grenades upon bodies,
           and wounds untended,
                             infected,
                             filled with pus.
           All this is old news to us.

Your new news is
           our flesh next to your presence ... and so healed,
           our failures next to your body ... and so transformed,
           our shadowed life next to your generative self ...
                    and so made new.
The cadences dazzle us,
           "made whole by his punishment,
           healed by his bruises."
Your newness bodily overrides our deathliness.
We are staggered by the phrasing,
           so close to us,
           so impossible for us,
           so overpowered by you in your self-giving,
                     Fridayed life among us.
"Grateful" is an understatement for how we are toward you. Amen.

- Walter Brueggemann ("Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth", p. 74)

(on reading Isaiah 52:13-53:12)