Advent Candles
May Advent candles
Light the way
To Bethlehem’s manger
Where the Christ Child lay.
As we celebrate His birth—
The One who came
To bring PEACE ON EARTH.
What Is Your Name?
What is Your name, little Child in the manger,
Come to earth as one of us?
What is Your name, tiny newborn stranger?
The name You’re given at birth is Jesus.
You are now “God with us”—Emmanuel
David’s Son and yet Son of God
You are our long-awaited Messiah
Master, Redeemer, Prince of Peace, Lord.
While here on earth you’ll be called Yeshua
You will die as the Lamb of God
You will rise again and reign forever
King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
What shall I call You, Child in the manger?
Alpha Omega-Beginning and End?
Of all Your names, what shall I call You?
I’ll call You Savior and I’ll call You Friend.
What Was it Like, Mary?
What was it like, Mary
To bear God’s Only Son?
To hold closely in your arms
Israel’s Holy One?
What was it like, Mary
To raise Him as a Child?
Was He bold and confident
Or gentle, meek, and mild?
What was it like, Mary
When you feared He was lost
While He was in the Temple
With the teachers of the Law?
What was it like, Mary
At Cana’s wedding feast
As He turned water into wine
When the banquet wine had ceased?
Mary, what was it like
To stand at the foot of His cross
And watch the Son that you had raised
Suffer to save the lost?
What joy you must have felt, Mary
When you heard that He had risen
His vict’ry o’er death and Satan
Freed humankind from sin’s prison.
O, Mary, He was your Child
Ever since His birth.
Now He’s returned to His Father
Who sent Him down to earth.
What was it like, Mary
To give birth to God’s Son,
Watch Him grow, see Him die,
Still Israel’s Holy One?
A Christmas Memory
by Jan Lutz
Our first Christmas Eve as husband and wife
Was spent in our barn playing the role of midwife.
A cow began calving when milking was done.
We’d planned to attend the Christmas program.
The cow needed help so we knew we must stay.
Before long a bull calf lay in the clean hay.
The mother cow was milked and the new calf was fed.
Her tongue licked him clean, and fresh straw was his bed.
It wasn’t the Christmas Eve we’d been planning.
We’d hoped to see children in pageant performing.
But the sights, smells, and sounds in our stable, we knew,
Were present at Bethlehem that first Christmas too.
Our Lord had a manger for His place of birth,
And animals welcomed His coming to earth.
So we spent Christmas Eve in our barn, in a stall,
And felt closer to Him Whose birth started it all.
