Power to Illuminate - Five Poems (Part 2)

We can get used to seeing things the same way, day after day, week after week, or even after many readings of the same passage of Scripture. After a while, the things we see always look the same. They don’t seem to have much depth or be of much interest. A tree is just a tree, the night sky just an array of lights, my neighbor is just the guy next door, this job is just a job.

In reality though, everything we see, all the people we meet and the tasks we undertake, everything about our physical surroundings—all of this is fraught with wonder, mystery, and depth of insight. People are made in the image and likeness of God. Work is a gift from God and an arena in which to demonstrate His wisdom, excellence, orderliness, and glory. And the creation declares the glory of God from the dimmest star in the night sky to the smallest pink centaury star flower under our feet. Glory and amazement are all around, together with opportunities for growth and service in the Lord.

This is especially true of Scripture. Faithful Christians read their Bibles regularly. They listen to sermons at least weekly and may belong to a Bible study group where the Word is opened and faithfully discussed.

But all this passing over and through the texts of Scripture can have an unnoticed stultifying effect. As we’re reading the Word each day, something in our subconscious—undoubtedly the law of sin (Rom. 7.21-23)—might say, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve read this a hundred times. Let’s move on.”

But surely we don’t think we have ever fully plumbed the depths of the eternal and unchanging Word of God? Surely there is more to be discovered, considered, experienced, and learned from our time in the Word?

Yet, like the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8.30ff.), we might need a guide to take us deeper, past just what’s on the surface, beyond what we have understood in our reading and study thus far.

And here is where poetry can help us see deeper into the Word of God and know more of its living and transforming power.

One example should suffice. Doubtless most of us have read the report of Assyria’s defeat at the hands of the LORD in 2 Kings 19.35: “And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead.” While all the mechanics of this operation may escape us, we accept as true just what the passage says. God struck down the Assyrians who were descending on Jerusalem with conquest and destruction in mind.

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s (1788-1824) poem about this incident, “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” encourages us to slow down, become immersed in the event, and experience—if only in a brief frisson—the incalculable power of almighty God:

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,

That host with their banners at sunset were seen:

Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,

But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Here the poet has entered the story, not just read it. He wants us to feel the terror of the Assyrian threat and see the splendor of their battle array. But he also magnifies the greatness of God Who struck down 185,000 proud warriors without smiting a single one of them. And Byron wants us also to feel the shudder of fear that would have spread throughout Nineveh when runners brought the report of this disaster to that proud and godless people.

Imagine if we had a poem like this for every passage of Scripture! Would that help us slow down in our reading? Engage our imaginations a bit more? Enter the text more fully and personally? Think more deeply and fearfully and wonderfully about our God?

Happily, there are many such poems—some of them cast in the form of hymns. All we have to do is search them out.

Poetry has the power to illuminate the revelation of God so that we can see it better and experience it more fully. And this is true not only of the revelation of God in Scripture, but of His revelation in creation as well.

So today, as you read your Bible, try sinking into the text like a poet. Observe more deeply. Look to see Jesus with more concentration and focus (Jn. 5.39). And open your soul to the transforming power of God’s Word.