Where Lay His Head?

Safe in their nests the snuggling birds, 

Deep in its lair, protected in its hole, 

The fox cub often hunts, or hunted is; 

But on the broad face of his own created earth 

Christ roams without a place to lay his head.

 
To lay his head?! But Martha’s house was his, 

And Peter’s, too, and others loved him fair. 

How say we then he has no lair, no nest, 

No place secure, no love from friends?
He walked on earth as love embodied!
 

They loved with passionate love who lived so close, 

Who heard the rich voice cry out the truth 

And saw the dear body break and bleed 

On the cross of cruel strain; they loved
Until their hearts of pain wept tears.

And yet it’s true—the cruelty of men 

Bound in Adamic hate and fear, they cannot cry 

‘Come gracious Lord and dwell in me!’ 

They turn upon their lusts of life 

And spurn the Holy One who loves.
 

I, too, know somewhat of the fear. 

I know the rejection of the words I speak, 

And in my nightly dreams I feel 

The sadness of the hostile hearts 

That scorn the love I long to give.
  

This is the fellowship of ours, 

The walking in the lonely place with him, 

But yet secure in compassionate pain, 

Knowing rejection does not condemn

But helps to make me one with him.


From All Things of the Spirit, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, p.79-80.