Can e’er a seed be born but from
A seed that came before?
It’s hen or egg, Theophilus,
The riddle evermore.

‘Tis true or false that fruit bears seed
Expressly of its kind?
And further that a seed won’t sprout
Except that it first dies?

And then once it matures as fruit
Ordained to multiply,
The seeds within, are they not borne
According to their kind?

Theophilus, a seed foretold
Now spreads throughout the fold.
The blind can see. Oppressed are free.
A stream from days of old!

Gentile and Jew eyewitnesses
Affirm the realized dream,
They’ve tasted—touched—a risen fruit
No eye had ever seen.

For such a fruit to germinate,
My friend, which seed has died?
It was the lowly Nazarene
That Pilate crucified.

A human mere or man divine?
Whence came this seed to earth?
There’s only one to testify
The nature of his birth—

Some spurn a woman’s word, no less
A celibate conception,
But what she mulled for decades dawned
Upon his resurrection:

That he who breathed our world to being
Begat its infant king,
And he whose word brings life from void
Can restore anything!

And I’m convinced it’s true, despite
My training as physician.
What Mary knew and hundreds saw
Is now my chief commission,

That all who hear may know his grace—
Salvation sprouts anew,
Not male-female, not slave or free,
And not Gentile or Jew.

The record will degrade to tales
Unless we spread the news.
I’ll add these things to my account,
Lord’s will, I’ll send it soon!

© Tanner Rinke 2025