“The Promise of Easter”

By Alfred Colo

This Lenten-Easter book was prepared with the intent that the words that follow, not be a chore, but rather, are intended to bring joy and personal fulfillment. I pray that you approach what you read here with an open mind and heart. Read at your own pace, as much or as little as you are comfortable to digest at one sitting. If something in it strikes a cord and makes you stop to thinkwell, then by all means, stop and think!

The purpose of this booklet is: to give faith, hope and inspiration, to encourage prayer, and to bring peace and tranquility into our lives. May it be a Lenten reminder of Gods manifold blessings, His guidance and His love.

If you want to know how much you matter to God, look at Christ with His arms outstretched on the cross, saying, I love you this much! Id rather die than to live without you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524545086

Alfred Colo

Alfred Colo, a former singer-songwriter, has immersed himself in full-blown poetry from creative love lyrics he honed his craft on when he realized that his passion for words lay beyond mere expressions of amour. His initial attempt at self-publishing with Xlibris Corporation in 2008 is a nature lover’s view in poetry through the four seasons, entitled Inside Looking Out. Reluctant at first, not offering too much material at once for reasons both pragmatic and artistic, he later ventured to expand his theme with residual material not included in his first book on four seasons alone. As his appetite grew, he knew that there was more he had to say in his accumulated poetry since 1984, which begged inclusion of more poems on the related twelve months of a year beyond the four seasons. After years of creative writing, learning and perfecting his art, he felt it was worthy enough and the right time to make public what eventually has become this collection. He trusts that his reading followers will concur that it was indeed worth the effort to have written a “companion book” to its predecessor, Inside Looking Out. Alfred lives in New Fairfield, Connecticut, after compelling circumstances led him here to exit the Big Apple. Including this one, he has authored twelve books pictured with others to follow. An active octogenarian, Alfred pursues his prolific outpourings on a variety of subjects at a still-going-like sixty white-heat rate. See if you can keep pace with a poet determined to make a mark and to leave a legacy to be proud of. He captures the spirit of his works by suggesting wholly or in part what the cover design will look like on both front and back. From his New Fairfield, Connecticut, home, author Alfred Colo finds inspiration in the abundant wild life he observes and includes in his writing. Other favorite creatures he depicts are angels, nativity scenes and yes, even Santa. Colo’s writings, are rich in detail and luminous in depth and like much of his work, it transcends its confines to achieve a dimensional reality infused with spiritual peace, whimsy, originality and creative imagination, singular cheer and good will. “I relish re-creating scenes of simple, uncomplicated faith,” Colo adds. Responding to an inner childhood calling, the author has created a succession of works as a diverse poet of impressive stature, rivaling his predecessors and role models. He is enabled to keep-fresh the approximately two-thousand-year gap from BC Bethlehem to the current beliefs in Christianity in his re-creation of this advent Christmas story of Jesus nativity.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Alfred Colo.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5245-4509-3

                eBook           978-1-5245-4508-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible

Rev. date: 01/05/2017

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

650710

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Table of Contents

(A-Man Of Contrasts) At The Crossroads

An Easter Message

Introduction

An Easter Message

Acknowledgements

From Cross To Crown

If This Be My Cross, Lord

A Thorn Bird

The Suffering Servant

The Crucifix

The Crucifixion

An Easter Prayer

From Cross To Crown

Easter Is A Jolly Time

I Can’t Forget Jesus

Let Me, Oh Lord, Let Me.

Come To The Cross Of Christ

Free!

The Cross Of Christ

The Seven Last Words Of Christ

Worthy

Promises

A Celebration

Come To The Carpenter

No Longer

Rejoice, Rejoice, People Of Zion!

Peter’s Progress

In His Hands

Prelude To Eternity

The Cross And The Crown

December’s Child

It’s Never Too Late (I N R I)

The Living Tree

Prejudice

A Donkey’s ‘Tale’

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(A-Man Of Contrasts) At The Crossroads

(THE GREATEST STORY EVER, RETOLD)

BY: Alfred Colo

_________________________________________

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Chapt.

1. Cross to Crown

2. He Is Risen

3. Heaven Is Won Today

4. A Donkey’s Tale

5. Alleluia

6. The Rising

7. Contrast at the Crossroad

8. The Triumph of the Cross

9. Let War Your Wars -

10. Christ Is Risen

11. Rejoice!

12. Easter People Raise Your Voices

13. By His Stripes

An Easter Message

By: Alfred Colo

A Christ-centered Easter

Is meant to be a holy day,

Instead of just a holiday.

Fill a perfect Easter week

With family activities:

Egg-hunts, stories, songs, recipes,

Suggested reading and

Discussion ideas -

To help create a

More spiritual holiday-

From Palm Sunday

Through Easter Sunday.

Turn each day of the season

Into a spiritual celebration

Of Christ’s Crucifixion

And resurrection,

Enough to last for several seasons.

Because He first loved us,

His name be praised,

All of our days,

Believing in Christ,

Our Savior and Lord.

Introduction

This Lenten-Easter book was prepared with the intent that the words that follow, not be a chore, but rather, are intended to bring joy and personal fulfillment. I pray that you approach what you read here with an open mind and heart. Read at your own pace, as much or as little as you are comfortable to digest at one sitting. If something in it strikes a cord and makes you stop to think…well, then by all means, stop and think!

The purpose of this booklet is: to give faith, hope and inspiration, to encourage prayer, and to bring peace and tranquility into our lives. May it be a Lenten reminder of God’s manifold blessings, His guidance and His love.

If you want to know how much you matter to God, look at Christ with His arms outstretched on the cross, saying, I love you this much! I’d rather die than to live without you.

Alfred Colo

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An Easter Message

May God bless us with: faith beyond fear and grief, to seek deeper understanding.

Father, forgive, Thou, our unbelief, and, as Thomas, our doubting (Show me. I’m from Missouri attitudes) - not believing unless we see, touch and feel first.

Easter is our time to encounter the risen Lord, and to experience transformation through God’s saving acts, both individually and in community.

Christ’s Resurrection for us today, also brings the gift of assurance that Believing is seeing. Mary told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, Who called her by name; the disciples then told Thomas but each one came, still needing a personal encounter.

This excites the possibility of imagining that even those who ‘have not seen’, may be part of a transformation that ‘comes to believe’ that, the Stone the builders rejected, became the ‘Cornerstone’.

Deserving exuberant praise for his acts of salvation, let all creation be called to bear witness to the goodness of the Triune God. We, as an Easter People, hoping for the good life to get even better, join in celebration every year since the first, when ‘seeing was believing’. With honor and in retrospect, distance permits us to see by believing first.

Alfred Colo

Acknowledgements

To my ever increasing multitudes of fans, admirers and appreciators of my writing efforts, may I continue to feed you and seldom fail to gratify your appetites for more. I thank you for your sharing, your generosity and your unwavering support; you are the oil that keeps my juices flowing. I shan’t mention you all by name; you know who you are.

I trust that the Good Lord gives me the strength and longevity to continue the mission I started many years ago; my aim being to publish as many of these unpolished diamonds in the little time I have left here to rewrite them, for human consumption. This will be my legacy.

In such trying times as these, nothing matters as much as Laughing Matters!

The genie in your bottle who grants you three wishes, with the promises to amuse, amuse, and amuse, remains eternally grateful for you, the audience, to partner with me in this shared pleasure.

He who laughs last….

Your muse, the author—

Alfred Colo

2010

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From Cross To Crown

(Sing Glory, Allelujia)

From cross to crown,

   what did He do,

      this Lamb of Yours,

   who changed the world,

      and died for us

   to wash our sins away?

The Son You sent,

   whose holy name,

      we praise in adoration,

   oh, Father of Creation,

      praise glory, Allelujia,

   Allelujia, glory!

He shed His blood

   on mercy’s seat,

      to claim for us

   what He had won,

      to set us free -

   through grace at Calvary.

The cross and crown,

   He bore and wore,

      with bold determination,

   still signifies- salvation.

Sing Glory, Allelujia,

   Allelujia, Glory!

You sons of Adam,

   come to God -

      through Jesus Christ our Savior.

He’ll pattern your behavior.

Sing Glory, Allelujia,

   Allelujia, Glory!

Don’t fear to follow

   in His path,

      you heirs of God’s relation.

With joyfull celebration,

Sing glory, Allelujia,

   Allelujia, glory!

Alfred Colo….4/7/87

New Fairfield.

By His Wounds We Are Healed

IF THIS BE MY CROSS, LORD,

and it be my burden to bear,

when I stray from course, Lord,

then steer me back, honor my prayer:

      IF THIS BE MY CROSS, LORD,

Oh, help me to carry it through;

that ‘rugged old cross’, Lord,

Your own Father lifted for You.

      I’ll pick up the cross

whenever, whatever the need;

far into the dark,

‘till I see the spark,

You light as You lead.

      IF THIS BE MY CROSS, LORD,

the sting of whip-lashes, times ten,

would sing: "Come across, Lord.

Please pick up the pieces again."

      I shall carry on,

      unflinchingly,

      at least, I’ll try.

      Assign me to do,

      what You will me to,

      The Good News to cry!

Your loss was our gain, Lord;

the minus, you made into plus,

does lighten the strain, Lord,

You shouldered on Your cross for us.

      IF THIS BE MY CROSS, LORD,

like Yours, when You stumbled and fell,

I’d know You’re the boss, Lord,

if ever I grumbled like hell.

      I’d follow that sign, Lord,

wherever, whenever You said,

tho’ I felt the thorns,

You wore for a crown,

press down on my head.

      IF THIS BE MY CROSS, LORD,

that crushes my weight by its size,

I’ll look to Your cross, Lord,

that fulfills the promise and prize!

-Alfred Colo, 8/86, New Fairfield-

A thorn bird

      searches all its life

   for a thorn bush.

Torn -

      as it impales itself

   on the sharpest thorn,

      it forfeits its life.

As it dies,

      as if in ecstasy,

   it shares the sting

      of its one and only song.

The nightingale

      dares not sing along.

Because He sought

      what, at last He’d lost,

   our sin was bought -

      at the price of great pain.

The Thorn Bird’s song.

      how sweet, does still

   echo from Golgotha Hill!

-Alfred Colo, 1/21/87, New Fairfield-

In affliction,

   He endured in silence-

      what the Son of Man

   fought not to fear;

Like a lamb,

   taken to be slaughtered,

Like a sheep,

   brought before the sheer.

         But HE NEVER SAID A WORD.

            HE NEVER SAID A WORD:

         Not a sound did He once utter,

            could be heard.

         No, HE NEVER SAID A WORD,

            not a pain-complaining word;

               not once ever,

                  not a solitary word.

He was humbled

   and humiliated.

Before justice,

   innocence was tried;

Crucified -

   for the sake of sinners,

      unaware

   their true King had died.

         Yet HE NEVER SAID A WORD.

            HE NEVER SAID A WORD.

         Not a sound did He once utter,

            could be heard.

         No,- HE NEVER SAID A WORD,

            not a fault-containing word,

            not once ever,

               not a solitary word.

Like a criminal,

   He then was buried,

      in a rich man’s tomb,

   but not for long.

From His lips,

   so pure, He spoke no evil’

      but was mocked

   for doing nothing wrong.

         Still HE NEVER SAID A WORD,

            and the word He never said,

               spoke more highly of His act

            than words could say.

         No,- HE NEVER SAID A WORD,

            not a Spirit-draining word,

               as He bore the cross

            that crushed Him all the way!

-Alfred Colo, 8/31/87, New Fairfield-

The crucifix I sought,

   my Spirit led me not ignore.

I proudly wear it publicly

   as Christ’s ambassador.

My crudely-wood-carved crucifix,

   from Bethlehem had come,

      but paled before the golden ones,

   which cost a greater sum.

I’m bold to wear His Signature

   of Faith, strung ‘round my head,

      unlinked by chain, but hung by hide,

   put to our Lord who bled.

Because my Savior-Carpenter,

   had grafted me to wood,

      from humble birth until He died

   at Calv’ry for my good,

I simply let the crucifix,

   my silent witness be:

God’s Son who spilled His blood,

   fulfilled His Father’s prophesy.

That day His hands and feet were spread

   like branches on a tree,

      a Triune God rooted Himself

   within the heart of me.

-Alfred Colo, 1/2/88, New Fairfield-

Oh, how Your Father must have cried

   on the day You had lived-for and died.

How much You must have suffered for our sins

   when they nailed You to and hung you on the Cross.

I’m sure Your Mother couldn’t sleep;

   through the night She would bitterly weep-

      for the bruised and broken body of the One she