Third Sunday Meditation: The Crag of the Cross

Beside the bleak coast of the Northland,

Where winds with the tempests keep tryst,

Amid a wild welter of waters,

An island looms out of the mist;

Cross on the Island of Manan

Bay of Fundy Canada

Photo credit:

National Archives at College Park

United States Department of the Interior

National Park Service

Forever the high tide of Fundy

Sweeps past with a rush and a roar,

Forever the gulls cry their warning

When fog wreathes the desolate shore;

Above the gray billows the cliffs frown,

Above the grim cliffs bends the sky,

And clear against cliff-side and heavens

The Crag of the Cross rises high.

Of old hath He laid its foundation

Who holdeth the sea in His hand,

Who weigheth its waters by measure

And setteth their bounds by the sand;

And slowly His craftsmen have carved it,

The frost and the storm and the wave

Rough-hewn from the rock everlasting

Where aeons their annuals might grave.

Long, long, ere o'er Bethlehem's manger

The Star shed its radiant light,

And long ere on Calvary's summit

The noonday was shrouded in night;

While kingdoms and nations had risen

And played their brief parts for a day,

And countless new creeds and old systems

Had flourished and passed to decay;

While oracles lapsed into silence

And prophets grew weary and dumb,

The Cross, through the centuries waiting,

Was pledge of a faith yet to come.

"The Crag of the Cross"

Annie Johnson Flint

1866-1932

Prolific Christian writer and poetess