“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree” is the opening line of a poem by Joyce Kilmer. There are several surprises hidden in both the poem and the poet’s life.
First, many, if not most people, believe Joyce was a woman, but his full name was Alfred Joyce Kilmer. He was born in 1886 and died in 1918 at 31 years of age, the husband of one woman and the father of five children.
He enlisted to fight in World War I with a contract to write a book about his experiences, but he was killed on a French battlefield before he could begin the work. And if you really like trivia, his father worked for Proctor and Gamble and invented their now famous baby powder!
So, it’s one thing to read Joyce Kilmer’s poems and quite another to hear the background of his life.
A poem is a collection of words on a page while the actual tree is the real thing, and that’s the message we’ll find in Hebrews 4-5.
It’s a transitional moment in the book of Hebrews from the written promises of God to the actual fulfillment of those promises in the birth of Jesus and his life among us.
The transition begins with the written word:
“For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any twoedged sword…” — Hebrews 4: 12
The written word of God penetrates through our protective shells and finds our hiding places to expose our deepest thoughts and basest intentions. It warns us about a superficial faith and calls us to a genuine and much deeper faith. It calls us from the written word to the living Word!
“ Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let’s hold firmly to our confession.”
— Hebrews 4: 14
Verse 12 recalls the written word and verse 14 turns to the living Word.
The author of Hebrews is gently moving us from the promises in the written word of God (the Bible) to the realities of the living Word of God (Jesus). Rather than worship the written word, we are to read and study the written word as a path to the living Word — Jesus!
“For though by this time, you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the actual words of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. But solid food is for the mature ...”
— Hebrews 5: 12-14
The written word is the milk — “the elementary principles of the actual words of God.” The genuine and much deeper mature faith comes when the written words of the Bible lead us to worship the living Word — Jesus is Lord!
Charles “Buddy” Whatley is a retired United Methodist pastor serving Dawson Street Methodist Church in Thomasville, Ga. With wife, Mary Ella, they are missionaries to the Navajo Reservation.
