Wisdom's Song {In Jars of Clay #4}

 

(A Lament for the United States of America)

 

The velvet sky cascades as my gown so lovely

Stitched with glittering diamonds above

My birth reaches past the rolling waters

I take my joy in God’s perfect love.

 

I watched as the oceans foamed in beauty,

When God spoke the word and so it became.

My joy spilled over with the waves lapping

As the first man and woman received their names.

 

I wept in sorrow when the world turned away

From God on high who formed them to live

In his presence with joy from day to day.

Instead, they ate what the Tempter did give.

 

The lies that spewed from his lips deceiving

The woman drank, deeply within

Then Adam followed her unto the slaughter

As they both turned from God to their sin.

 

Now you, dear Babe, are rocked in my arms here

Listen to this story I shall tell

Your mother once held you safe inside her,

But her heart drank from that same ruined well.

 

Poisoned long years by the Tempter —

Dressed in fine garments of light,

Gleaming and jeweled in shining splendor;

But truly a dagger aimed to blight.

 

She lay her body on the steel table

The alter to Rome’s Libertas of old.

The torch—a gleaming in the harbor,

Lit her eyes with lies long told.

 

The promise echoed cross the waters,

The Ephesians all hailed her Artemis —

The lovely haunting form of freedom,

That the girls and women sought to kiss.

 

And now on rocking shores no different

A looming lady shades her own

With the emblems of her reason

With the Tempter’s lies long sown.

 

This great promise Freedom came singing

Required your blood for her life

The City upon the hill embraced shame

And pursued the image of Liberty’s strife.

 

Guarding the harbor and the shoreline

Of the land of the free and the brave

And demanding young blood to fill her

To pave her eager path to the grave.

 

The priests of this goddess so exalted

Mincingly step in white, noble robes

To offer up countless lives now forgotten

So Libertas may frolic down the roads.

 

While you, dear Child, in my arms now

Were sentenced to death for her play

Know this goddess dancing from shore to shore

Shall surely sink in liberty’s bay.

 

Your mother trembled with tears rushing

As she offered you up from her womb.

She knew not how precious your life was

As she decided to become you tomb.

 

This Lady Libertas shines on the shore there,

Her regal beauty drapes at her feet.

She holds the light of reason within her —

A blazing torch for all to meet.

 

Independence she also grasps closely

A declaration unto all the world

That the chains of all shall be broken

Who take up her banner now unfurled.

 

And trampled under her steps so fiercely —

Your precious life and countless more

Before ever your eyes opened with seeing

All that the one true God had in store.

 

The goddess reigning in Liberty’s homeland

Succored and doted upon today,

Sits like a queen o’er the heavens

Calling to all, “Come my way!”

 

She offers them freedom in their choices

Like the Tempter of old voiced to Eve.

O behold! Libertas, fashioned by him!

A beautiful phantom meant to deceive.

 

Your mother, just like Eve in the garden

Ate the fruit —now filled with death’s void,

And here under my sheltering wings now

You drink the River of life and of joy.

 

For though Lady Libertas demanded your blood, Dear,

The Lord Jesus climbed up the hill

As this goddess, stands shining in her splendor

The Suffering Savior, His blood he did spill.

 

Though Libertas gleams now as a beacon

For this world in the darkest of night,

All will see her light is a falsehood

When Christ Jesus comes in his might.

 

He shall throw this goddess adorning

Herself in the blood of souls he made

Into the pit reserved for destruction

For all who refuse Christ’s sheltering shade.

 

But your dear heart lives under his gaze here

You did miss the pictures he placed in the world

So for you, you have not to wait now

To drink in his beauties long unfurled.

 

So, join your voice with mine and echo

“O, mothers and fathers, incline your ears!”

Forsake the gods your hearts are serving —

The Tempter’s shadow through all of, the years.

 

O City on a Hill, reclining

May these words break through your soul,

Behold the blood in which you’re bathing

Is not the blood that makes you whole.

 

The God of all who came in flesh once

And laid down his life upon the tree

Spilled out his perfect blood to wash you

To cleanse all your filth eternally.

 

His arms are open, so come to Jesus

Join your children slain in time

But if you tarry long in your sin now

You may die yet stuck in your crime.