As Advent is drawing to a close, I’ve found surprising fodder for the fires of worship in the poetry of W.H. Auden. As a high schooler, God used a paper on the conversion of T.S. Eliot and its effects on his poetry to stir my own heart towards the Savior I did not yet know. This year, I’ve been reading the poetry of W.H Auden and noting how his own conversion to Christianity bled out in his poetry. Parts of his poem For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio have helped ready my heart to remember the birth of the Savior. I hope they do the same for you.

The Value of the Human Soul

Ever year when we sing “O Holy Night,” the phrase, “Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth” resonates with me. Our world swings two poles, one being a dangerous dehumanization and the other being an idolatrous and crushing centralization of humanity. In the Christmas narrative, we see Christ as the central figure reaffirming the worth of image bearers. How much is a soul worth? A soul is worth the Son of God coming and dying to make a way for souls to be satisfied fully with their Maker once again.

This year, as war rages on in the very land where Jesus was born, the good news of the great worth of human souls to God speaks loudly above the shelling. As Auden concludes his extended poem For the Time Being, he says something similar that has stuck with me of late:

“Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.”

We need to stare longer at the stable where humans are neither obstacles nor statistics, but people and potential children of God.

The Beauty of Ordinary Faith

Joseph seems to get short shrift during the holiday season. We rarely hear much about his role and the faith it took to receive his beloved and her incredible role of bearing God’s son into the world. I love the way that Auden sets Joseph in a more modern light as a man dressed up to the nines to meet his love for a date. It does what poetry is supposed to do, it makes me re-think and re-member the nativity that has become overly familiar. Joseph excitedly says the following;

“My shoes were shined, my pants cleaned and pressed,
And I was hurrying to meet
    My own true Love…

A chorus from offstage replies with the following:

” Joseph have you heard
What Mary said occurred;
Yes, it may be so.
Is it likely? No…

Mary may be pure,
But, Joseph, are you sure?
How is one to tell?
Suppose, for instance…Well…”

Auden’s poetry helped me to imagine the shock Joseph must have felt to hear Mary’s experience. Mary had a choice, but so did Joseph. By faith, he chose to move forward with their marriage rather than sending her away in shame. The narrator speaks to Joseph, saying,, “To choose what is difficult all one’s days/ As if it were easy, that is faith. Joseph, praise.”

Joseph’s faith to step in as a step father challenges me to remember the beauty of simple faith. When we continue to do the hard, the unseen, and the uncelebrated tasks God sovereignly sets before us, we are walking by faith.

The Sorrowful Way of our Savior

We love thinking of Jesus swaddled up in linens in the manger, but we loathe thinking of him wrapped in similar linens in the tomb. Jesus refused to call the angels who heralded his birth to his rescue because he was born to die for us.

In the middle of For the Time Being, Mary speaks the following over her newborn son:

“Dream. In human dreams earth ascends to Heaven
Where no one need pray nor ever feel alone.
In your first few hours of life here, O have you
Chosen already what death must be your own?
How soon will you start on the Sorrowful Way?
Dream while you may.”

Jesus chose the Sorrowful Way of the Cross that we might travel the way of holiness of which the prophet Isaiah spoke. As much I appreciate Auden’s poetry, I much prefer the poetry God gives us in his everlasting word:

“And a highway shall be there,
    and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
the unclean shall not pass over it.
    It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
    even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.
 No lion shall be there,
    nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
    but the redeemed shall walk there.
 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
    and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
    they shall obtain gladness and joy,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isaiah 35: 8-10).

Whatever stirs your soul towards the Savior, I pray that you would lean into it for these last few days Christmas!