Covenant

THE BETTER COVENANT
Apr 21, 2019

Written on the anniversary of anniversaries,
Easter Sunday

It’s about seven years ago
Recorded in Genesis Fifteen
That I got a mighty message
About Abraham and his dream

Our God was planning a covenant
They had Abraham in their sights
Including also all of us
Creating new God-given rights

An heifer, a goat and a ram
Were brought forth as part of the deal
God had instructed Abraham
To prepare them well for the seal

The seal has such a history
It’s quite overwhelming tough stuff
Our God and Our God made the deal
With never the thought of a bluff

I expect most know of the Bible
Some don’t really care what it says
It’s mostly dismissed by the culture
It’s so rarely given much praise

Hold up, this may knock your socks off,
If you’re already on bare feet
It’s time to put your best socks on
And prepare for this ghastly treat

Some background here will be helpful
Back then, thousands of years ago
When young kids prepared for marriage
It was Dads time; time for their show

A warning now is relevant
Specially if you hate all gory stuff
And when it comes to covenants
You are not dealing here with fluff

The marriage vow is serious
And much more-so to the in-laws
Now both Dads are the enforcers
The insurance need for this cause

Enter the blood path covenant
The key tool of their insurance
It’s that ‘big-pledge’ extraordinaire
Their ‘all-relatives’ assurance

Just as Abram was instructed
The Dads also need an heifer
They then will need to divide it
That’s one half against the other

What’s that mean:

Cut in half
‘A Separation’
Let blood flow
In the middle
Make a path
Just for Dads
-This ain’t no
tarradiddle

Are we now fully prepared
For todays before-marriage deal?
Roll call – Dads ready, time to go
It’s now seal time, time to get real

Dads, both your shoes and your socks off
Grooms Dad is your place to go first
Go now – walk – through the path of blood
Make this pledge now or you’ll be cursed

Now if my son dishonours you
By dishonouring your daughter
Then I will do this to myself
In two halves myself I’ll slaughter

Dad two’s turn, he’s now up to bat
No bat, no shoes and no socks
He’s ready – go – walk through the blood
Better I’d be checking my inbox

No deal, remember we agreed
For our kids future happiness
Thinking ahead our legacy
Let’s put aside all scrappiness

Dad two then honourably walks through
This enlightened path of pain
Both knowing how the future rests
On this their matching bloodstain

If my daughter dishonours you
If she then dishonours your son
I will then do this to myself
I will sever myself undone

The heaviest of commitments
With the bloodiest covenant
And sealed that day so publicly
An unbreakable loving-grant

Returning now to Abraham
Who’s obeying his Triune God
With heifer, a goat and a ram
Do you think he was overawed?

Did Abram really understand
About a blood path covenant
Was this the first ever set down
Creating this big precedent

Do we think that we know it all
Because we’ve all heard the history
That raises a major question
Whether you’re aware of His Story?

Returning to Abraham’s day
He so clearly was overcome
Having prepared for something big
A deep sleep would seem so humdrum

Methinks God had a hand in this
As great darkness fell about him
In which Abram learned from His God
Big promises for his offspring

We can debate those promises
From a son and a seed and land
But the whole key – the Covenant
Exclusive from Triune God’s Hand

I spoke about a Triune God
They who reign in highest station
With unique perichoresis
About which, more I’ll now mention

The Three-In-One Relationship
In a perfect communion
All are for One and One for All
Infinite Eternal Union

Wow Lord, I love these words You write
As long I stay so close to You
And yes, today of all Special Days
To be here and honouring You

And there is nothing redundant
Using the same Word in a rhyme
When You are The Word I’m using
As You’re present all of the time

After that joyful diversion
I love these unexpected hugs
Let’s get back to The Covenant
Though not yet a subject that tugs?

What Abram saw – spectacular
In the dark when the sun went down
Our Triune God made Covenant
Such a staggering loving Crown

The Covenant was for Abram
Note, Abram no participant
A spectator on the sidelines
Our stand-in recalcitrant

So, what on earth does that all mean
Abram was neither in nor out
Just another unworthy man
And a Covenant breaking lout?

Abram needed a substitute
As a replacement for the deal
To clinch and make it watertight
All set for the Heavenly Seal

Our God in Triune Majesty
Who subs in for us – Mankind’s Champ
Following The Smoking Furnace
With Our Triune God’s Burning Lamp

That’s spectacular as it is
And since God knew mankind would fail
He thus boldly stood in our place
The only ‘He Who Will Prevail’

A Covenant’s a Covenant
But what happens when we all fail
And here’s the thing that is AWSOME
God never intended to bail

So this really is the real deal
Made by I AM, our Loving God
He’ll pay the price for all our sin
No wonder we should all be awed

He after all did design us
In His image we all are made
After His likeness we’re molded
Until we get this ‘Big Upgrade’

The awesome upgrade – what He did
In honouring Their Covenant
They arranged all this by Themselves
Our Triune God – True Government

God separated Himself from Himself
So fully and completely on the Cross
Fulfilling the Bloody Path Covenant
Ensuring you and me never see loss

Forty-two verses: six sevens
Saving us when we were all at sixes and sevens
(sometimes verse counting gives a surprise Hug)

 

OUR RESTORATION
May 13, 2020

Five years ago, or sixty months
The blood path covenant gripped us
More than that it overwhelmed
Grabbed our imagination thus

That one would covenant this way
On my behalf is quite enough
But if I should fail miserably
Their planned result way more than tough

Covenanting with another
Yes, fair and square both have heads up
But substituting for the other
Makes no sense to assume their cup

While surety risk removes all risk
Knowing that the other would fail
Why motivate such suicide?
And we’ve not even touched on scale

Imagine too, a punishment
The other fails, surety jailed
Does that seem excessive fervour?
In whose book is surety hailed?

Here surety is ridiculed
‘Widespreadedly’, majority?
Let us examine this paradox
It’s impact and priority

We needs go back, to middle times
Arranged betrothed both bride and groom
Families comfort to protect
Lest either side remove the bloom

And so, devised a covenant
Of blood path nature as Abram
An heifer or two cut in half
Their blood a path, no epigram

Seems way out this ‘swearing’ set up
The groom’s dad first and then the bride’s dad
Both implicitly declaring
I’ll halve myself if my kid’s bad

What on earth do you mean by that?
Well, the dads’ pledge to each other
If child proves dishonourable
Severed we’ll be as the heifer

Each commit to the other dad
Before their children get married
Provide such a strong assurance
Family honour unsullied

Now here’s a wild and wacky thought
If one dad trod the bloody path
Bare footed on behalf of both
His hand – surety? crazy math

Those odds – no taker to be found
Why would he do that anyway
We’ll now explore that crazy thought
And rock your world without delay

It’s why I thought I’d write a book
So engaged by what I had found
‘Our Separation’ it’s title
I’d be sharing what’s so profound

I mentioned Abram earlier
The ‘father’ of all the nations
But his dream and all that that meant
Has rocked me to my foundations

In Genesis fifteen verse nine
Abram instructions apposite
Take an heifer, goat and a ram
Divide and lay halves opposite

So that ugliest scene was set
Blood pooling a path in the middle
Between both halves, on either side
What! a barbecue with no griddle?

Oh no, mix not the millenniums
Our God had a plan for Abram
In a dream state he needed be
No time for big epigram

Serious business on the docket
Planned in Genesis one and one
Focus the course of everything
Undo the course of the undone

Covenant time for Abraham
Dream video behind his eyes?
A Smoking Furnace first passed by
Then a Burning Lamp, The surprise

They passed between the bloody halves
In Covenant making procession
With such implications you’ll see
But so far what’s your impression?

God makes Covenant with Abram
Father God the Smoking Furnace?
But no Abram participates
As the Burning Lamp took his place

The Burning Lamp is Jesus Christ?
Second member of the Trinity
God in loving substitution
Immaculate Divinity

From the foundation of the world
God’s intended plan didn’t change
Give man a choice, no robots here
So pivotal was this exchange

Can man stick to his commitments?
Much less Covenant with His God
So, His God stood in for mankind
Guaranteeing Covenant shod

And yes, Abram and his nations
Fell often and repeatedly
Unholiness, all kinds of sin
Iniquity, deliberately

Cut off, rejected and divorced
Lost causes, disbarred forever
Hell bound in our own hand-basket
Snagged by our own endeavour

God made man in His own image
Fellowship with Him forever
That’s where the Covenant comes in
To compensate for man’s ‘whatever’

Reconciliation long planned
If man failed to keep Covenant
Righteous Justice must then be weighed
Honouring Blood Path Provident

Remember the pledge in verse ten
Where there’s one dads child’s dishonour
For failure to keep covenant
The result a ghastly horror

So Jesus Christ kept God’s faith intact
Despite the tight bond with His Father
And on the blood shedding wooden Cross
They severed themselves from each other.

Jesus keeps Their Promise intact
Despite the tight bond with His Father
On the Blood Shedding wooden Cross
They severed Themselves from each Other

 

GOD’S PORTAL
Sep 30, 2020

Then the horror of great darkness
‘Fear not Abram I am your shield
And thy exceeding great reward’
God’s monumental plan revealed

Genesis fifteen and verse one
And then speaks God of Abram’s heir
This His promise for all mankind
Abram thoroughly unaware

Obediently he sets the scene
Carcasses opposite each other
Abram tired and so falls asleep
The stage is set for the mother

The Mother of all visitations
Our Triune God visits the earth
A portal needs to be opened
For A Covenant making birth

Imagine the intervention
On our physical time and space
God visiting our dimension
In Their ultimate step of grace

Then the horror of great darkness
Violent clouds surround the Portal
Earth’s atmospherics trembling
Terrorizing all things mortal

Then earths response to Their Presence
To the wormhole They created
Their Path in between the heavens
No moment is more inflated

Daniel¹ further opened my eyes
Reference Ezekiel chapter one
The entrance of God’s Holy Throne
Father God, Spirit and The Son

A whirlwind came out of the north
A great cloud with fire infolding
Brightness and colour from its midst
To us a is great foreboding?

No wonder Abram put in sleep
No man can ever see God’s face
The earth itself was hugely touched
Amazing Grace for the human race

God’s presence in the tabernacle
His moving portal through the wilderness
Column of fire at night cloud by day
Doesn’t this all bewilder us less

They came to make this path for us
Abram our representative
The smoking furnace and the burning lamp
Was mankind’s doom preventative

Thank You Lord for opening our eyes
Your Word has so many layers
Thank you for your obedience
Encouraging us to be players

These Covenant words are quite long
Not as long as our God’s patience
They long for each of us to run
It’s time to can our complacence

 

 

IN THE BEGINNING
Jul 7, 2020

This may not be a poem – but it is more than poetic.
Published on July 7, 2020 on Red Thread Poets Facebook and Instagram pages on Day 32 of the 40 day Countdown to Launch Day – August 8, 2020, for this website.

Genesis 1 : 1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. KJV

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית … translated into: ‘in the beginning’

This first Word from the Hebrew aleph-bet:
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית … bĕrēʾšît
pronounced … bere-sheet

‘in the beginning’
says all this below, when taken from the rich meanings given to each letter of the Hebrew aleph-bet contained in the six letter word בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית

Looking at the meaning from deep within the Hebrew ‘we get something along the lines of’¹:

‘the body of the highest,
the ox (referring to Jesus),
was pierced with something sharp
by the destroyer, through the hand,
by which he (died and) established
the finished work on the Cross’¹

… all within the first six letter
Hebrew word in the Bible!

¹ Unlocking The Mystery Of Prayer, with permission from Daniel Duval.