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A Pet Poem for Easter · Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast

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  SPEAKER_00: You are listening to the Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast.
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  SPEAKER_00: Please visit online at backwardmutters.substack.com.
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  There you can subscribe via your favorite podcast player and
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  read the newsletter.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Randy Edwards.
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  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, listeners.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is a poem for Easter.
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  It was originally written in response to a poetry prompt in
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  which we were to write a pet poem,
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  At the time I was preaching a series from the book of Job and
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  was thinking a lot
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  SPEAKER_00: about the monsters in that book,
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  SPEAKER_00: Rahab,
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  SPEAKER_00: Behemoth,
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  SPEAKER_00: and Leviathan.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was really taken by the image of Leviathan in Job chapter 41.
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  SPEAKER_00: Up to that point in the book of Job,
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  SPEAKER_00: Job has been suffering calamities,
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  SPEAKER_00: suffering so-called good friends trying to set him straight,
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  SPEAKER_00: suffering the silence of God.
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  SPEAKER_00: pleading his case.
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  SPEAKER_00: But in Job chapters 38 to 41, God asks Job some questions.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in Job 41,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Lord asks this,
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  "'Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his
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  tongue with a cord?
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  SPEAKER_00: Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?'
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  SPEAKER_00: Will he make many pleas to you?
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  SPEAKER_00: Will he speak to you soft words?
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  SPEAKER_00: Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever?
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  Will you play with him as with a bird,
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  or will you put him on a leash for your girls?
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  The image of the Lord making Leviathan nothing more than a pet
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  for young girls
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  SPEAKER_00: sealed the deal for me,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I had to write a pet poem about Leviathan.
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  About that same time,
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  I was looking for ways in which artists imagined a Leviathan.
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  I found one image I particularly liked that was included in a
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  12th century
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  SPEAKER_00: manuscript titled Hortus Deliciarum,
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  SPEAKER_00: The Garden of Delights,
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  SPEAKER_00: a book that was compiled by Herod of Landsberg.
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  SPEAKER_00: In this image of Leviathan,
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  some artistic monk drew Leviathan being fished for with a hook
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  featuring Jesus'
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  SPEAKER_00: human nature on the cross as a bait.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've included the image in the episode's notes.
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  The fishing line is composed of several patriarchs and prophets
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  which resemble a
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  jesse tree or a chain of prophecies in the Old Testament
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  foretelling Jesus' coming.
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  SPEAKER_00: Leviathan attempts to swallow Jesus,
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  SPEAKER_00: but in so attempting,
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  SPEAKER_00: Leviathan pierces his own jaw on the hook.
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  SPEAKER_00: Looking at the image, you can see how the text and the image relate.
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  SPEAKER_00: One other thing, seemingly random, but really related.
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  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever caught those TV shows about noodlers?
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  Noodlers are catfishers who catch these huge catfish by
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  sticking their hand in a
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  SPEAKER_00: catfish hole until the catfish bites their arm.
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  SPEAKER_00: Once the catfish bites, they pull the fish out of the water.
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  SPEAKER_00: Do they use dough balls or chicken livers?
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  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
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  SPEAKER_00: They use themselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: They are the bait.
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  SPEAKER_00: In some way, this is just what Jesus Christ has done.
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  SPEAKER_00: He became the bait so that we might get the catch.
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  SPEAKER_00: In a manner of speaking,
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  I'm saying that Jesus' resurrection on Easter morning means the
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  catfish hole of
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  SPEAKER_00: death is empty.
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  SPEAKER_00: Life has swallowed up the grave.
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  Jesus makes death no more dangerous than a tame bird or a pet
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  your little girls
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  SPEAKER_00: lead around on a leash.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, I'd like to wish you a happy Easter.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah, friends.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christ is risen.
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  SPEAKER_00: A pet poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tied like bait and fastened to a tree,
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  SPEAKER_00: he descended,
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  SPEAKER_00: cast himself to the depths of this world's chaos and calamity,
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  SPEAKER_00: sank neath its waves and breathed his last breath.
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  SPEAKER_00: Swallowed by the gaping mouth of death in the dark of its belly,
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  he lay until the barbed hook of justice set on the morning of
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  the third day.
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  SPEAKER_00: Holding his rope in the beast's jaw fixed fast,
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  SPEAKER_00: the one who went down was drowned,
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  SPEAKER_00: arose,
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  SPEAKER_00: bursting death's belly.
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  SPEAKER_00: The scorned and outcast led the viathan out by the nose.
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  SPEAKER_00: In our loving Redeemer's victory,
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  SPEAKER_00: the fears we fear,
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  the terrors and threats are of no more concern for you and me
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  than a bird a young
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  SPEAKER_00: boy might get.
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  Leviathan,
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  that dragon of death,
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  is led for your girls on a leash like a pet.
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  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to the Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Randy Edwards.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.