The Face of God

It was a pleasure reading this poem, "The Face of God", at Quisqueya Christian School's annual Staff Christmas Party. Tara Thorn signed the poem along with the reading. This is a later recording of the poem, along with Hebrews 1:1-4, which was recorded at home the following weekend.


The Face of God

Once we walked in the loving gaze
Of the face of God
In Eden’s beauty paradise
On heavenly earth; on heavenly sod
Our transgressions made us outcasts
And dark winds blew us,
To the East, it threw us
The wind withered the land
The fallen outnumbered the sand
None could rest, not kings in their riches
Nor the poor with outstretched hand . . .
And the prophets cried out
The priests offered sacrifice and praise with shout,
And the kings waged war and decreed
Until it was clear, all people bleed
And silence deafened the people in need
Then the starry night came. . .
Wise men were called from the East
Back to their Prince of Peace
His star led them there
With gifts of worship so fine and fair
The Light had entered darkness
After four hundred years of silence
Broken in a babies cry
For all to live, who once had died
The Shepherds came with staff and rod,
And these wise men, to see the face of God
In former days, and in many ways
God spoke and now by His Son,
In these latter days
He walks again with His people
In Eden made anew
His face and their face; seen through and through
To once again walk in that loving gaze
In the Glory of the face of God
In Eden’s paradise
On heavenly sod
To be right again with our God
Heaven came down and intimacy restored
Both rich and poor have seen their Lord


© December 2011, Robbie Pruitt


Hebrews 1:1-4

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.”

Shepherds Abiding

As the High School Bible Teacher at Quisqueya Christian School, I have the privilege of speaking at chapel every now and then. This past Wednesday I had the opportunity to teach on the meaning of Christmas through Luke 2:1-21, focusing on Luke 2:8. In exploring why God would send angels as messengers to shepherds in their fields, we see that God has a shepherd’s heart. Christmas is about Jesus leaving home and living among us, His sheep, and laying His life down for us, so that we might have His life. Jesus is our Good Shepherd and Great King.

To view the Power Point slides from this talk, please visit this link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2730FU8J2UtWUNPV2FReGlzUmM/view?usp=sharing

To listen to this chapel talk, click above or visit this link:

https://soundcloud.com/quisqueyachristianschool/robbie-pruitt-qcs-chapel-december-10-2014

Key Verses:

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.” –Luke 2:8

"'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.'”  –Matthew 2:6, NIV

Benediction and Prayer:

“Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” –Hebrews 13: 20-21, NIV)

Three Gifts

I Am With You

I’m With You, photo by rosmary from Flickr

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” –Isaiah 7:14

“Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us.” –Isaiah 8:10

In ninth grade Bible class the other day the students and I got into a fascinating conversation about the fiery furnace in Daniel 3.

The student did not understand why God, being all-powerful and almighty, would come down and rescue Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the furnace, when all He had to do was rescue them from a distance.

"He said, 'Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.'” -Daniel 3:25

Here is how the conversation went:

Student: "Sir, Why would God not just save them from the fiery furnace? He didn't have to go in there.”

Teacher: "This is our God. He not only saves us from the fiery furnace, He enters into it with us and saves us!"

The mysterious and marvelous incarnation is simply this: God is with us.

God enters into our sufferings and delivers us from them. This is what the Angel was saying when the announcement was made: “‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’)” (Matthew 1:23). Our God is Immanuel. Our God is with us.

Tim Keller talks about the incarnation as God’s answer to suffering and he talks about this answer to suffering being the gift of Christmas: “We sometimes wonder why God doesn’t just end suffering. But we know that whatever the reason, it isn’t one of indifference or remoteness. God so hates suffering and evil that he was willing to come into it and become enmeshed in it . . . The gift of Christmas gives you a resource – a comfort and consolation – for dealing with suffering, because in it we see God’s willingness to enter this world of suffering with us and for us.”

God is with us.

Frederick Buechner says this about the incarnation: “The incarnation is ‘a kind of vast joke whereby the Creator of the ends of the earth comes among us in diapers... Until we too have taken the idea of the God-man seriously enough to be scandalized by it, we have not taken it as seriously as it demands to be taken.’”

God is with us. Are we scandalized by this reality? Are we aware of God’s presence in the fieriest of furnaces that we find ourselves in? God does not just want to rescue us from our hardships, pains and sufferings; God is with us in them.