Emmanuel - Kari West

In this held breath of Eve

We raise the candles up, up, up

Then draw them close

Then blow them out.

We still sleep in the darkness

And wait.

For more than a flicker of flame.

God with us.

Does that feel like a joke

Or a slap

This year?

Have you barred your heart

Against his seeming absence?

Have you crafted hollow counterfeits

That break beneath your weight?

It is hard to wait

In the empty spaces

Where the name Emmanuel

Rings hollow in the mind. 

In this held breath of Eve,

We raise the candles up, up, up

Then draw them close

Then blow them out.

We still sleep in the darkness

And wait.

For more than a flicker of flame.

How to live among cinders,

In smoke and in shadow,

In the burnt husk and hurt of the world?

See how the candle flame waxes and wanes.

Quivers, bends low

Beneath an unseen hand.

See the wax melting.

Misshapen. Disfigured.

The cost of that burning light.

Emmanuel. 

Is not a joke, nor a slap. 

Nor hollow, nor far off. 

Emmanuel.

Is not a shadow

Nor a dull word on a page. 

Emmanuel.

Is the eternal candle flame

Shining in bewildered darkness. 

Emmanuel.

Was a once dying ember. 

And is now the ever-living, ever-sustaining, ever-near spark

of the new cosmos.

Emmanuel.

Was marred like melted wax—for you.

In this held breath of Eve’s,

He’s here. 

In each darkened moment,

He’s here.

Often hidden, tucked away

Like a stable in the poor part of town.

But here, always here.

Speaking your name. Calling to you. 

Listen.

Emmanuel is a promise.

Emmanuel is a presence. 

The light that cannot, will not, go out.

No matter how large the shadows loom.

And one day,

That flame will ignite the dawn.

And no inch of the cosmos will cower in darkness.

For we will dwell with Emmanuel,

The God who always dwells with us.