This week we are meditating on the sudden, hopeful return of Christ. I’ve chosen a short poem that captures this sense of suddenness. This poem is written by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Let us remember to pray for him and all our brothers and sisters in Anglican Communion.

Advent Calendar

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like the frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

Rowan Williams