On The Great Commission

Resolve

It's over the every-morning coffee
that you notice the blood-red sun
of every day and it's over
the commuter steering wheel
that you see the angels' stair
of every day and it's over
the flickering fluorescent
and the xerox machine
that you realize

Tomorrow I will sip
at a fresh cup of coffee,
your wife will pour for me
before sitting beside you
with her small glass of white grape juice.

After we speak the speech
of every day and it's over
we will arise, we three
we will walk out your open door
into an apocalyptic everyday morning,
and we shall beat our kings into plowshares
our swords into gardeners.


I stumbled across this poem in an old journal of mine. I searched to see if I had posted it anywhere previously, but I don't think it ever saw the light of day. I know that I shared it with a writing group that met at our bookstore, which makes the piece several years old. That did not keep me from touching it up with a red pen a bit. :-) Yes, I give you smiley face.

The poem is about the Great Commission of Matthew 28. Or rather, it is about how easy it is to forget the world in our everyday lives. But tomorrow, tomorrow, my brothers, we will go out and make disciples of all the world, regardless of how busy our families and our jobs and our everythings keep us. By Jesus' grace we will make plowshares and gardeners. The last two lines are my way of saying that the nations are streaming into Jerusalem, and that the living and active Word of God, which is a sword, will make tenders of God's garden out of his enemies. 

Yes, I have over-explicated my poem, but hopefully not unto death.

God be with you, my brothers.

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