Rhyming Redsong: Matthew 16 (Yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees; Peter’s Declaration and Rebuke of Jesus; Jesus Predicts His Death)
The Pharisees and Sadducees both came
to Jesus and they tested him this way:
they asked, a sign from heav’n, he’d demonstrate.
Replied, he, “When, comes evening, then you say
‘Fair weather we will have, the sky is red,’
and in the morning, ‘Storms what we expect,
while overcast, the red sky tells us why.’
Interpret the appearance of the sky,
you know how to, but you cannot, the signs,
interpret those prevailing of the times.
A generation, ‘dulterous and wick’d,
looks for a sign, none will be given it,
except for Jonah’s sign, a giant fish.”
Then Jesus left them and he went away.
When they left to go back across the lake,
disciples, the, forgot, some bread, to take.
“Be careful,” that, what Jesus to them spake.
“Be on your guard against their wretched yeast,
that of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
Among themselves, these things, what they discussed
and said, “It’s, we forgot the bread, because.”
Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked,
“Of little faith, you, why, amongst yourselves
do you talk ‘bout not having bread. You still
don’t understand? Think of the basketfuls
you gathered after all of them were fed,
don’t you remember the five loaves of bread
for the five thousand? Or the seven loaves
for the four thousand, and the basketfuls,
how many, gathered, you? How is it you
don’t understand, I wasn’t talking to
you, bread, about? But on your guard, you, be,
against that of the Pharisees, their yeast,
and too the leaven of the Sadducees.”
Then, understood, they, he did not refer
to guarding ‘gainst the yeast, to bread, you stir
but ‘gainst the crooked things they sought to teach,
both them, the Pharisees and Sadducees.
The region, Caesarea Phillippi,
when Jesus came there, he asked his discip’es,
“The Son of Man, who does the people say
he is?” Replying to him, this way, they,
“Some John the Baptist; too, Elijah, say;
and Jeremiah others speculate;
or one, a prophet from a former age.”
“But what about you?” of them, he inquired.
“Who is it that you say,” he asked, “am I?”
Then answered Simon Peter, what he said:
“You’re the Messiah of the living God,
his Son.” Replying Jesus, “Simon, blessed,
you are, the son of Jonah, for, you, this,
was not revealed to you by blood and flesh,
but by my Father in the heavenlies.
As “Petras,” it is your identity,
and on this rock, my church, build solidly.
The gates of Hades it won’t e’er subsume.
The keys of heaven, what I give to you.
Whate’er you bind on earth is bound in heav’n.
Whate’er you loose on earth is loosed in heav’n.”
Then, ordered, he, to not, disciples, his
tell anyone, Messiah, the, he was.
Then Jesus started to, as time progressed,
explain to his disciples that he must
go to Jerusalem, how many things,
the elders’ hands, by them, his sufferings,
the chief priests and those who, the law, they teach,
that he must, killed, be, and on the day, third,
again be raised to life and disinterred.
Aside, where Peter took him and began
rebuking him. “Lord, never!” what he said.
“This, to you, shall ne’er happen!” Jesus turned
and, “Satan, get behind me!” said to Pete.
“A stumbling block is what you are to me.
You don’t, in mind, have them, concerns of God,
but merely human ones, by them, enthralled.”
To his disciples, Jesus, words, said these,
“Whoever, my disciple, wants to be,
deny, themselves, must, and their cross, up, heave
and follow me. For whoe’er wants to save
their life will lose it, but whoever would,
their life, lose for me, it, what they will find.
What good will it be for someone to gain
the whole world yet, their soul, what, forfeit, they’d?
Or what can anyone give in exchange
for their own soul? For he, the Son of Man
will with his angels, come, his glory, in
that of his Father, God, who is in heav’n
and, to, all persons, he’ll reward them then,
according, what each one of them has done.
“I tell you truly, who’re here standing, some,
will not taste death before they see the Son
of Man, who’s coming in his kingdom soon.”
T.H. Chalm 