Desolation, Consolation, Desolation
Epiphany 3; Luke 4:1-30
Filled by the Spirit, he is teaching,
honed by harsh tests and raw beseeching.
Fame after wilderness temptation:
consolation follows desolation.
Look, how that cycle gets inverted –
those who admired him still deserted.
Praised by the people and invited,
he sees how soon is wrath ignited.
Reading Isaiah, he is feeling
he is the one to bring them healing.
This they reject – he’s just a local!
How could he dare to be so vocal!
He claims that he’s the one anointed,
there in the midst of those appointed.
Synagogue leaders stand affronted!
He’s not the preacher they had wanted!
How dare he claim to be God’s servant
in words so challenging and fervent!
“Scripture fulfilled within our hearing?”
Let’s set about his disappearing!
Barbara Messner 19/01/2022
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Barb, poet priest 
Wonderful and I am always stunned at the creative rhyming that just calls to be the very right words. The line that breaks my heart is so true today as long ago “He’s not the preacher they had wanted.”
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For me, the search for a rhyme often helps me break away from the obvious into the intuitive. Mind you, I really didn’t want to write rhyming couplets – so awkward, but the poem went that way, and maybe the hint of satire was appropriate. As you say, he is left lonely and unwanted today as much as then.
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