We are fragile like the flowers,
our hours sown with grief.
Is it life—or a thief—that makes us
and takes us, petal by petal to the wind?
Ever closer to the end of all
that ever almost was.
We fade because of our inheritance—
our parents left us death,
and every breath, cut off from the Giver of life
is rife with pain,
like rain pulled from a drought.
And out in the scorching sun,
as soon as we’ve begun, we wilt,
tilting downward into dust.
Thus to live, thus to die,
our cries lost to history.
***
But the mystery is the tender Shoot,
taking root in the same dry ground—
deep in the browned, cracking dearth
of the earth gasping for God.
He grew, unflawed and unblighted,
the whitest of flowers,
and, for our stains,
the full strain of God’s justice
crushed Him, red.
He bled till the midday sun went black,
and fell back to the dirt, done—
and gone—but not for long.
***
Do you hear the song, dancing across the ground?
The sound of the raindrops, shaking
and waking the grass?
This death will pass—the rain is falling,
the rain is calling us to drink,
to sink our roots deep into the wells
and quell our thirst.
And this cursed ground will bloom—
no more a tomb, but fields of praise
where the sun’s rays will not steal
what heals, but give.
And we will live with Him, reaching higher, stretching longer,
stronger even as the petals fall away.
And the day we fade is not the last
when it has passed for there are always more,
here on the shores of everlasting life.
***
“Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:1-5 NASB1995)
““Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost.” (Isaiah 55:1 NASB1995)
“Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.’” (John 4:13-14 NASB1995)
“Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ ” (John 7:37-38 NASB1995)
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’” (John 11:25-26 NASB1995)
Gratefully His 