Jesus Was A Carpenter

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 why they're selling beads and postcards And they tell us too that that was long ago But would He stand today upon the sands of California And walk the sweating blacktop of New York and Mississippi? 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 foundations 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