Sunday, December 19, 2010

A Christmas Card - blogstyle

While I cannot send out a Christmas Card to anyone who reads ProjectEzraRising, what I can do is send my best wishes and prayers to you in this Holiday Season. I know that some of you are missing loved ones that you might not be able to see because of imbalanced and distorted views of what being an authentic follower of Jesus really is. I say that we cannot not ‘make’ a Christmas miracle happen nor can we make a hardened and now cold heart towards us thaw but what we can do is remember the love of God for us through what we have been through. Each step He has been our buttress from total collapse and it is because of His care for us some of us even still breathe. I wrote a poem a few months ago and I guess it is my ‘Christmas Card’ to you. In growing up, I remember that on every bottle of soda pop (they were glass back then) there was a phrase No Deposit-No Return. This meant that you did not have to pay a deposit on the bottles you purchased because they did not have to be returned. They were in essence valueless when the pop(or as we say in the South ‘Coke’) was gone – you just threw it away. This was the mindset of the times I grew up in; the throw-away society. We must be reminded that in the Kingdom of God, no one is a ‘throw away’. Perhaps you were taught that God allows us to teeter on the edge of a precipice while we perform acts of obedience to keep us from being nudged over the edge. Or perhaps you were taught of the stratas of heaven that it is only the ones who measure up to some manufactured and artificial standard that masquerades as God’s – of which you always would fall short. My friends, I bring you great tidings of great Joy for in the city of David was born the one who would take away the sins of the world. He is the one who has the final answer though there are those who would dare speak for Him – I remind you of the parables and their consistent message of finding that which was lost, forgiveness and forbearance and over all an open window in which a light will always burn.

We light our light and put in the window for those we cannot see, for those who will not hear for the day and time will come when they will. This is for us and the ones who spurn us because of our difference in faith and our courage to follow our own conscience -to which God speaks directly- even in the midst of so much pain. We say to them and to the infernal enemy of our souls we are not:


No Deposit – No Return

Along the great Highway, the Kings Highway
To the great and glorious city
Strewn aside and along the berm
No Deposit No Return
Once filled with value and sweetness
Effervescent life and sparkle
Now laid aside drained dry
Baked and crusted with the dust of passers by
At the Speed of Light in the Kingdom of Light
No Deposit No Return
Value Dried and Value drained
Only a glint to those who whiz past
A memory a shimmer in the corner of the eye
Soon forgotten on the Silver Wind
Once consumed once spurned
Drained Dry
No Deposit No Return
From the city a Figure seeks to learn
Of the No Deposits No Returns
In His heart He makes a turn
In His eyes compassion burns
For the No Deposit No Returns
Lifts to the Light Lifts to the sight
The drained and dry
Not seeking but knowing why
There is no life for the drained and dry
He takes He saves He does not put aside
But holds close to the heart that burns
For the No Deposit No Returns
While no use by the passers by
There is value for the drained and dry
In the city the glorious city He returns
His arms full of the cast aside
He made the Deposit and He has Returned
With the No Deposit No Returns


Merry Christmas and Hope to You in the New Year

Kevin

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