There was a Book of burning words
left open on the stone,
and any hungry passerby
could read it on their own.
It cut, and then it bound the wound,
it starved, and then it fed,
it broke the proud man to the floor
and raised him from the dead.
Then scribes came down in priestly robes
with paper and with pen,
and the name they gave the pen they held
was the Wisdom of Men.
They wrote all night by candlelight,
they wrote what they preferred,
and laid their pages one by one
across the living Word.
Page one, and the fire went dim.
Page two, and the words went cold.
Page three, they wrote their own names in
across the promises of old.
Page four, and they called it order.
Page five, and they called it peace.
Page six, they cut a single door
and they kept the only keys.
There's a light behind the paper,
there's a light beneath the page,
and the nations feel along the seam
in the dark and on their own.
They can cover it with writing,
they can cover it with claim,
but the fire that they buried
is still burning underneath.
But paper tears and paper burns
and a page won't hold for long,
so they sent for lime and quarried rock
and they built to make it strong.
The first course took the reader's knees,
the second took his hands,
the third came level with his eyes —
and the light went out of the land.
There's a light behind the wall,
there's a light behind the stone,
and the nations feel along the seam
in the dark and on their own.
They can mortar every corner,
they can seal it every place,
but the fire that they buried
is still burning underneath.
Stone one, we hold the pardon.
Stone two, we hold the bread.
Stone three, the gifts are finished
and the God who spoke is dead.
A widow ran her hands along
the mortar and the stone.
A fevered child was carried past.
A beggar walked alone.
They could see the light between the cracks,
they could not find the door,
and every man who held a key
had gone to build some more.
How long, how long, O Jehovah?
How long shall the darkness stand?
Shall Your mercy hold forever
with the Book out of our hands?
Then a messenger came swiftly
in a garment shining bright,
with humility beneath the robe
and a sword of living light.
And page by page he cut them back,
the paper and the claim,
and page by page the letters showed,
and page by page they flamed.
The wall came down in a rolling sound
like a stone rolled off a grave,
and the water that was dammed a thousand years
went out to every land.
There's a Light that comes from within,
the same Light that comes from above.
It flows from God's Holy Word,
it breathes life everywhere it goes.
It cannot be covered with paper,
it cannot be walled with stone,
and the fire that they buried
is burning in the open now.
Burning,
In the open now.
Burning in the open now.
It cannot be covered with paper.
It cannot be walled with stone.
And the fire that they buried,
is burning in the open now.
