Awesome and Fierce

Alone in the misty morn, the watchman climbs, feeling

her way in the dark, she presses her hands into the

cold and rough stones as she steps higher and higher

 

to the top. Her mind flashes as she ascends upward to Skull

Hill just over the ridge, to blood soaked ground, and then to a

quiet garden with an empty grave. Courage fills her heart.

 

When she reaches the highest point, watchman stretches

heavenward, arms, body, soul, and song. Yes, she sings praises

and beats a drum, she wars as she walks—tramples and marches.

 

The watchman does heavenly business. Smoke and fire rise from

the deep valley below, acrid air burns her eyes. She weeps. Citizens line up

willingly, ignorantly to fall to their deaths into the fire pit, and she

 

intercedes at the top for change, for safety below. From her viewpoint,

she spots a route of escape, and pleads for the lives waiting in dim light

for their deaths. She shouts out a proclamation of hope and salvation.

 

Daily watchman climbs to wait upon the walls, to view the scene from

above, to war and praise, to warn and stop the slaughter. She pleads

and cries. Her name is Bride, and she makes herself ready on the

 

walls of daily prayer. She is abandoned to the desires of the Bridegroom.

She purifies before dawn. At noonday she stands, stunning in white and

gleaming on the walls, awesome and fierce in strength and beauty.

 

I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest (Isaiah 62:2).