timmer-man 3

Jesus was a carpenter 

and He worked with a saw and a hammer

and His hands could join a table 

true enough to stand forever

and He might have spun His life out 

in the coolness of the morning

but He put aside His tools 

and He walked the burning highways

and He built His house 

from people just like these

-

and He found them as they wandered 

through the wild Judean mountains

and He found them as they pulled their nets 

upon the Sea of Galilee

and for a thousand evenings 

while the day behind Him emptied

He put aside His tools and stopped 

to touch the dying

and He built His house 

from people just like these

-

it was on a storming Sunday 

when He rode to old Jerusalem

and the palms they cast before Him

were like the crimes they laid against Him

it was on a storming Friday 

when He climbed the streets to Calvary

and where He died, today they are selling 

beads and postcards

and they tell us too 

that that was long ago

-

but would He stand today 

upon the sands of California?

or walk the sweating blacktop 

of New York and Mississippi?

where the mighty churches rise

above the screaming cities

would He be a guest on Sunday?

a vagrant on a Monday?

with the doors locked tight 

against His kind, you know...

-

Oh, come again now Jesus 

be a carpenter among us

there are chapels in our discontent

cathedrals to our sorrows

and we dwell in golden mansions 

with the sand for our foundation

and the raging water's rising 

and the thunder's all around us

won't You come and build

a house on rock again?

-

Jesus was a carpenter 

and He worked with a saw and a hammer

and His hands could form a table 

true enough to stand forever

-Johnny Cash-