Welcome the Wild One

Lyrics as Poetry

Welcome the wild one,
the desert declaimer,
urgently, awesomely,
crying his news:
“Now, listen now!
There is One who comes after!
I am unfitted
to fasten his shoes.”

Camel hair coated,
unkempt and unbending,
living off grasshoppers,
honey and briars.
knee-deep in water,
he heals the Impending
flame giving Spirit’s
enveloping fires.

Hear from the herald
the king who’s expected:
world ending wrath is the
power he describes,
God’s own anointed,
outspoken, uncensored,
judging the palace,
the priests and the scribes.

See now the young one
who lingers and listens,
standing intent in the
buzz of the throng,
waiting in line,
on the brink of decisions,
seeking the Spirit
that beckons through John.

Gaspingly drenched by
the people’s baptiser,
drowned in the grief of our
groanings and cries,
bowing beneath God’s
unfettered outsider;
rising envisioned,
he opens his eyes.

Welcome God’s Love-Child,
anointed, invested,
desert impelled by the
Spirit within.
World-making love,
shining, tempered and tested,
now is at hand –
let salvation begin!

Words by
Brian WrenCopyright © 1989 by Hope Publishing Company
(Carol Stream, Illinois) for USA,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Copyright © 1989 by Stainer & Bell Limited
(London, England) for all other territories