But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. Galatians 4:26

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” John 18:36

There sat a lone and solemn soul

Atop a barren hill,

And in his heart his yesterdays

Played and played again.

Like painted tales an old bard tells

Of knights and grails and home,

The memory of Acre’s fall

And all his brothers…

All beneath the battered, broken wall…

Played and played again.

They tried to build their kingdom there

Where bloodstained David could not build,

But had to yield the temple’s rise

To his wise and unstained son.

Then like Babylon the horde had come

And he was sent away,

Sent to find another way.

What home is there in exile?

Could vows unpaid that played and played again –

Unfulfilled –

Comfort the loser’s broken heart,

Parted as it was from a lost hope?

“A base, but not of bloodstained ground…

A better wall than piled dead…”

The thoughts that swirled round and round

Played and played again

Inside his head.

He touched the crimson cross upon his chest

And wept for wasted, war-torn ways.

But hope, always newly born,

Unlike the long-buried wall,

Would not crumble,

Would not fall.

The city longed-for would yet come,

And we will know a better home,

A wholeness built on better blood,

A Day that does not know the night.

“The Jerusalem above is free…”

This is right.

This is right.