The poem below was born out of my growing understanding of the threads woven through countless ancient stories and prophecies… like clues to hidden treasure.

The mystery of rebirth must be one of the greatest hidden treasures ever.

Where did Jesus get the concept of being “born of water and spirit” in John 3:5?
How far back does the idea originate?

This poem explores the clues… the safety of the womb… breaking through waters to new places… Spirit breathing into newborn life…

Do you see these threads, too?

Poem: Delivered

Cocooned in waters, dark and still, life waits,
a fetal spiral ready to uncurl.
Lungs pump fluid; fragile wings unfurl,
expand, and take their nascent flight of air.
She’s born. She knows not where;
her mother’s voice is there.

At night, they work a riddle, waked from sleep.
His Voice stirs chaos; deep calls unto deep.
“Be born again, the waters break, inspire first breath.”
But how to be reborn without a death?
A mystery to unearth:
of water, Spirit, birth.

The Spirit skims the chaos – calls its depths.
Waters break, and man is born from land.
He breathes the Spirit – hears the same Voice calling.
Desire leaves him fallen, Eden banned.

An ark their womb, they watch as rainclouds break.
A dove – on Spirit wings – surveys the flood.
The sign of peace, an olive leaf, she offers.
The ark delivers man on fresh-bathed mud.

Rocked in reeds – a basket-womb for cradle –
Mercy draws him from his miry den.
The Red Sea splits; he draws her slaves to freedom.
Laws engraved in stone enslave again.

Delivered through the breaking Jordan waters,
the Promised Land awaits, a home unknown.
Born to faces strange and sights peculiar,
they hear the old Voice call; they’re not alone.

An ancient rock, once struck, delivered streams.
This prophecy now speak to hearts of stone:
The death-cold law, fulfilled in warmth of flesh,
will crack and pour out streams of Life – His own.

Compassion is a womb, a safe cocoon,
a waiting place, before the chaos clears,
before new wings can beat with breath of air,
before first flight, before the light appears.

Spirit alights above a favored mother.
Grace incarnate: God’s own life conceived.
The Son breaks waters, hears her voice, familiar.
In darkest chaos, Light has been received.

Baptized in the waters of the Jordan –
firmament is split; the sky rips wide;
then flies again that dove, the Spirit soaring –
He hears the thunderous Voice approve with pride.

Blood and water flow, as if in birth.
The earth is split and quakes. His body breaks.
Labor pains attend this gift of Life.
To be reborn means death: the curse He takes.

Cocooned, entombed in chaos, in the depths,
the law-made-flesh lies cracked, the guilty freeing.
The vileness of the centuries oppress
the Perfect One, to Whom all owe their being.

Come and leave cold, broken hearts inside
this tomb where sin and self-oppression died.
His heart of flesh, the living law, is ours,
brought forth in blood and birthed with labor’s scars.

He promised them the cryptic sign of Jonah –
a fish his saving womb those three dark days.
Before a wretched second birth on dry land,
the seaweed-shrouded sage foretold his praise:

“From deep in the realm of the dead…
You… brought my life up from the pit.”

And God did it.

Earth is quaking – opens wide the tomb.
Bursting through infernal gates of gloom,
He walks among them, opens blinded eyes,
then disappears beyond divided skies.

Cocooning here, in firmament-wrapped earth,
a birth through Zion’s gates is yet ahead,
when dust-encrusted graves wide open burst,
and groaning earth delivers up her dead.

Here we gestate, longing for a Face –
the nesting One, who makes a resting place,
which shines with brightness seven times the sun –
whose Voice, no longer mute, will say, “Well done!”

The city of rebirth is filled with springs;
From stones came fountains! all the newborns sing.
Their songs and dancing fill the streets, first paved
by Him whose life, once quenched, the others saved.

Born again and baptized through the waters,
breaking free to Spirit-air above,
the Voice is clear now: Here’s the way; walk in it.
Moved by Him, we keep His law of love.