wordsout by godfrey rust
The sailing of the ark  < 1 of 45



1

Andrew, another year has stripped
the leaves, like misconceptions, from the trees;

the last page of the kitchen calendar
prepares to drop, announcing the advent

of that season when, according to good scholarship,
Jesus couldn't have been born. The resurrection

waits on the other side of winter, and in
this month that asks for no apologies

the winds of daily living have laid bare
the root and branches of our faith—what

is it that remains when it has shed
all that's deciduous, its stark wooden

outline raised against the backdrop of this grey,
late-century, turbulent post-Christian sky?


that season when...Jesus couldn't have been born  It is unlikely that Jesus was born in the winter. Neither Luke nor Matthew's account gives any direct clue, other that the grazing of sheep outdoors. It has been argued that this was not unlikely in a mild Palestinian winter. Calculations based on adding fifteen months to the date of the conception of John the Baptist (according to Luke, this occurred when his father Zechariah was serving in the temple as one of the priestly division of Abijah, the month of which is known) place Jesus' birth in the spring.

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