The Cloak
Pastor John Ford
2009-2011
The dawn broke cold that
Autumn morn,
It’s light still masked and
grey, forlorn.
This prison dank, devoid of
light,
For hours yet would seem
like night.
The jailor’s steps from down
the hall
Cut through Paul’s fog as
each footfall
Came nearer to his door and
he
Could hear him fumbling with
the keys.
Would this time be like
dozens hence,
When Paul had hoped against
good sense
To hear the voice of his
faith- son
Dear Timothy the hoped-for
one,
Who’d bring the things from
which Paul prayed
He’d gain some comfort and
some aid?
Each time before had brought
distress,
And hope had turned to
bitterness,
As footsteps waxed but then
would wane,
And each day brought the
same refrain.
First comfort, joy, then
hope itself
Despaired of Paul. His
failing health
Rushed toward him even as
his fellows
Deserted him for greener
meadows.
Just Luke, and one
Onesiphorus
Remained with him and in one
chorus,
Encouraged Paul, “Keep faith
alive.
“Surely for you God will
strive.”
So on Paul prayed and wrote,
expounded
The Word to churches he had
founded.
So much to do in one short
season!
So much to write, so much to
reason.
How now can he presume to
watch
What he can’t see, or hear
or touch?
The men in whom he once
depended
To mentor flocks and keep
them tended,
Have late, along the wayside
fallen,
Abandoned faith, forsaken
calling.
Paul’s doubts rush in; he
prays them cease,
And asks that faith and
strength increase.
His own counsel ought he
heed:
“And sober-minded always be,
Endure suffering, in Christ
Persist,
Ever being the Evangelist.”
Each evening now hints
winter’s blow,
Chill nightly whispers, ebbs
and flows.
Frost on the sill is each
morn’s tiding,
His flesh and marrow cold
abiding.
To Troas Paul’s thought
often rolls,
To Carpus’ home and to those
scrolls,
Vouchsafed with friend, and
in whose care
He left The Cloak he longs
to wear.
“Oh where the son of my
right hand?
Timothy haste that I might
stand,
Yet in the place that God
appointed
Exhorting and teaching His
anointed.”
But scrolls he needs are
back in Greece.
And that…. Cloak. As warm as
virgin fleece,
Takes up so much now of his
thought.
Paul does not know, in fact,
cannot,
Why such an old and faded
coat,
Tugs at his heart, and lump
in throat,
Seek comfort in that faded
scarlet
Tattered, stained, and worn
out corselet.
Once the garb of King or Prelate,
Now cast off to jail-bound inmate.
His mind rewinds three
decades since,
That time by welcome
Providence,
Another Jailor, different
cell
In Philippi once wished him
well,
Bestowed The Cloak, then
brighter hue,
Though stubborn-stained, and
pier-ced through.
The token of his great
esteem
To Paul for rescue, when a
dream
Was shattered as the earth
did quake,
Jail cells split ope, and
fearing prison break,
The guard despaired, sought
his own death;
But then heard Paul’s
exclaim-ed breath,
And found life instead
forevermore.
He took Paul home and bid
him pour
Life-Water on his household
too,
Guard’s family saved, with
grace infused.
And since he had no wealth
to share,
But saw that Paul had naught
to wear,
He passed on what he
treasured dear,
The Cloak his father once
averred,
Had graced a King, who for a
time
Walked on the earth in fame
sublime,
But had been found an enemy
Of those He sought to serve,
and he
Was brought before a
Priestly Court
And there condemned, and
forced the short
Way up to Rome’s Prelate,
who then
Condemned the King for fear
of men.
Then Mocked and jeered by
crowd gone wild,
Was tortured, beaten and
reviled.
The father conscripted to
join his Guard,
Cast lots for the garments
he'd discarded.
The jailor’s father thought
luck invoked
The winning of condemned
King’s cloak,
But ‘twas Providence instead
that day
Made Jailor’s father take
away,
The cloak that graced God’s
condemned Son,
And purposed Paul would be
the one
To wear the coat though
unaware,
It once had graced his
Savior there.
For had he known, Paul would
have shied
From such tribute, and would
have cried,
“Lord no, not I, for
certainty
I am the least; it can’t be
me.
The one who grieved, and
hurt thy Church,
Should never wear what once
did gird
The Lord, oh no, not I.” But
God
Did not regard Paul’s
selection odd.
Upon the gibbet Christ was
hoist,
The people jeered, their
hatred foist.
But heaven praised this
Condemned One.
King of the Jews, and Heaven’s
Son,
With earthquake, lightning,
dark at noon.
Smoke filled sky and chok-ed
moon.
The sound as Veil rent
filled the air-
Wondrous things, the Guard
saw there.
Graves fell open, and once
more walked
The dead about and God’s
praise talked,
Miracles numbered in such
amount,
Guard’s baffled mind, could
not account.
No pagan god gave comfort,
succor,
And Heaven mocked their
wooden stupor.
These things he feared to
share with kin,
For the shame he felt at his
own sin,
To revile, then kill this
King, this God,
Made him despise where he
had trod.
All he’d say of Cloak now
hallowed,
“It once graced a King, on
his walk to the gallows.”
The Way of that King he did
try for awhile,
But he couldn’t get past his
self-loathing and guile.
In the end he died broken, and
passed without wealth;
No riches, no land, in the
end losing health.
He gave as endowment The
Cloak to his son,
Not revealing the casting of
lots it had won,
Not divulging the secrets of
God seen that day,
Or his brief, unproductive
walk in The Way.
Now here sits Paul not
knowing this tale,
Awaiting the cloak before
Winter’s first gale.
‘Tis strange his affection
for that worn old garment,
It tugs at his heart so, its
lack brings him torment.
Why should he care so? Why
yearn for its touch?
What about it compels him to
want it so much?
What mystery the peace when
he’s in it restrained?
Why knows he so well its
pattern of stain?
How so is the nearness of
Christ in that textile?
A closeness not felt since
his wilderness exile,
Where Jesus himself trained Iscariot’s
true heir,
Calling Paul the Apostle to
the Gentiles while there,
The Fellowship then, ‘tween
the Lord and this Paul,
Is somehow the same as he
feels in that shawl.
Footsteps pause now beyond
his cell's door.
A key turns the lock, and
guard ventures forth.
Behind him impatient is
Paul's gospel-son,
Who pushes forth and toward
Paul runs.
His arms are open, with
tear-stained face,
He gathers Paul in his
embrace.
“Father here at last I’m
come,
I’ve brought the scrolls and
the whole sum
Of what you asked, I’ve
brought to you.”
“The Cloak?” croaks Paul.
“I’ve brought that too,”
Says Timothy, I did not know
It meant so much until you
wrote,
Although I’ll pledge that at
its touch,
My heart did thrill so very
much.”
“I can’t explain,” the
Apostle told
His Protégé, “why such an
old
Coat keeps me more than merely
warm,
Its touch shields even inward storm.
Though men desert me, leave
me here,
Somehow that Cloak makes
Christ seem near.
‘Tis best, I'm sure, to
question less,
And trust in God to know
what’s best.
To humbly take the Grace
that He
Has purposed to enrobe for
me.
And never question why that
rug
Engenders thoughts of Jesus’
hug.”
watched Paul as Timothy
unfurl'd the fleece,
And wrapped Apostle's frame
in Savior’s Peace.
Human nature tends to cause us
fix
Much thought and hope on
such relics.
But thanks to God, whose
graciousness
Overlooks our loathsome
peckishness,
And hides from sight what we
would fashion
Into idols and other
faith-distractions,
‘twould blind us of our
Savior's charge
To gospel spread, and kingdom
enlarge.
Had Paul but only known this
tale,
He'd surely have been first
to rail;
Exhorting that much
superstition
Dulls the church from its grand
mission.
But ignorant of its storied
past,
His virtue intact, Paul held
it fast.
We cannot know that Cloak's last
fate,
Of its final locale we must speculate;
Was it lost, destroyed, or
stolen?
Misplaced, perhaps, or even
chosen
For a diff’rent use, somehow
still dear,
When Paul was killed and
buried near
The place two Apostles both
gained Heaven
And the church made grow by martyrs’
leaven
When Paul with Peter drew each
last breath
And under sod, were laid to
rest,
Did Caesar bless their death
petitions,
And without intent endorse the
Great Commission?
Was the King of King’s
Coronation Gown,
In the end become an Apostle’s
Burial Shrowd?
We oft can’t tell how God
will show
His love for us, and we can
know
In times of trial and great
distress
How to behave with
nobleness.
With hands of mud and feet
of clay,
We often stumble on our way,
We doubt, we halt, we fear,
we cow,
E’en Apostles stop and
ponder how
A load so large and
ponderous
Can still seem to us so marvelous.
Excruciating ecstasy!
We’re crushed by it so
eagerly,
God’s Secret Counsel grant
we bear
As well, a gift of Grace to
wear.