To
Jesus on His Birthday
For this your mother sweated in the cold,
For this you bled upon the bitter tree:
A yard of tinsel ribbon bought and sold:
A paper wreath; a day at home for me.
The merry bells ring out, the people kneel;
Up goes the man of God before the crowd;
With voice of honey and with eyes of steel
He drones your humble gospel to the proud.
Nobody listens. Less than the wind that blows
Are all your words to us you died to save.
O Prince of Peace! A
How mute you lie within your vaulted grave.
The stone the angel rolled away with tears
Is back upon your mouth these thousand years.
Check-in
Responsive
Question: What kinds of feelings do the
(What do you look forward to and what do you dread?)
Closing Words
Give
us a child’s heart, that we may be filled with the wonder and delight of this
season. May the Lord watch between me
and thee while we are absent one from another.
Responsive
The
Thanksgiving relatives have gone. The fall harvest season is turning into the
darker, bleaker days of winter. Even as we put away the leftover turkey, the
Salvation Army bells jangle our nerves toward Christmas.
Christmas
decorations are hung all over town. We have leftover turkey and 29 more
shopping days ‘til Christmas.
This
is the season of peace and goodwill, caroling and Messiah sing-ins. There will
be Christmas Bazaars, office parties, cocktail parties and hot rum toddies.
By
the end of this week we should have our Christmas cards in the mail—greetings
to friends all over the world, each with a letter telling them all that we did
last year.