Now the Green Blade Rises

I - Promise

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,

Green wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;

Love lives again, that with the dead has been;

Love is come again like wheat arising green.

 

II – Exploitation

When we use the world as if it were our own,

Planting seed with poison, causing earth to moan,

Earth turns to sand, and ice melts into sea,

Rivers turn to mud, and putrid ponds turn green.

 

III - Slumber

In the grave they laid Him, love by hatred slain,

Thinking that He never would awake again.

Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen,

Love will come again like wheat arising green.

 

IV - Lament

Now our world is wounded, scarred by human greed.

Now the earth is ravaged by unbridled need.

O Lord, how long must your creation cry?

Darkness soon may come to shroud the once bright sky.

 

V - Death

When our hearts are wintry, grieving or in pain,

Your warm touch can call us back to life again.

Fields of our hearts, that dead and bare have been,

Long for love to come like wheat arising green.

 

VI - Incarnation

Come, O great Creator, as in Bethlehem,

To your world, incarnate, bringing hope again.

All creatures sing, “You only can redeem!”

Love shall come again like wheat arising green.

 

VII – Responsibility

Come, O Gracious Healer, source of health and life,

May we, too, be healers, we who have caused strife.

Strengthen our hands to bind the wounds of Earth,

Sharing with the world your promise of rebirth.

 

VIII - Resurrection

Forth He came at Easter, like the risen grain,

Jesus, who for three days in the grave had lain.

Raised from the dead, our risen Lord is seen;

Love is come again like wheat arising green.