A Christmas reflection 

By John Rackley

 
The beat of an angel’s wing
He woke with a start.
His wife slept on.
Tired and breast-sore.
 
But the baby was awake.
Watchful.
Alert.
Fierce eyes staring.
 
Had he felt it too?
 
The soft movement of air.
A gentle disturbance.
 
Why didn’t his son cry?
Why was he so still?
What did it mean?
 
He seemed to be listening,
To be waiting,
Strangely calm.
 
Zechariah returned to his bed.
His wife slept on.
Whilst under the same sky
A mother pushed her son
into a world ready
to be made new.
 
And a cousin welcomed his arrival.
Whilst a tired priest
Knew he was mixed-up
In matters greater
Than his calling.
 
He was struggling to make the connection
But was not excluded from the blessing
Of our saviour’s birth.
 
 
 

John Rackley is a Baptist minister who blogs at windingquest.wordpress.com where he has written another Christmas reflection – ‘He walked alone on Christmas Eve’.