Barren Gardens

The days are coming, says the LORD, 
…I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Amen, amen, I say to you, 

unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, 

it remains just a grain of wheat; 

but if it dies, it produces much fruit.

John 12:20-33

One for today’s readings, about hearts and seeds, to the tune O WALY WALY (“Take Up Your Cross”):

The days are coming, says the Lord,
when God will plant within our hearts
the seed itself, the living Word,
in barren gardens, worked and scarred.

Bring on those days, we pray, O God:
Take all we are and e'er have been.
Dig out the stones and break the sod;
transform us into Eden's green.

For you alone can make good ground,
that, when the springtime sounds its call,
within our hearts might love abound
if that one grain of wheat should fall.

If it should fall, if it should die,
if it should lie within the earth—
O God, may you be glorified
when grain to springing green gives birth!

Let grace and mercy in us toil,
a brand new Eden here to start,
then plant your seed within our soil.
Oh, write your Word upon our heart!