Tell the next generation that this is God,
our God forever and ever. God will be our Guide forever. (Psalm 48.13-14)
God, our Maker and Minder,
You bring us to the manger and show us
The full extent of Your love—
Its fragile humanity
Heard in
the hushed beats
Of a tiny,
newborn heart
Its uncontested divinity
Witnessed
in blinding majesty
As time’s curtain
divides
To reveal You fast at work
Delivering on pledges made long, long ago
To a people whose only Hope was You—
Their one and only God
In a world
of many gods
And many,
many excuses for inventing gods
Their one and only Truth
In a time
of fearful imaginings
And
convenient falsehoods
We gaze into a barnyard crib
At glittering dark eyes
That already know all that can be known
Yet long to learn from us
To see
through our eyes
To search
our hearts inside out
Eyes to pierce our veils of pride and illusion
Finding us
in our despair and discontent
Looking beyond
our boasts to uncover our banality
We touch the tender olive skin
Of peace and love made real and ready
Eternal Word woven into timebound flesh to live with us
Here, now, always, forever—alive in us
Flesh come to die in our stead
To rid us of remorse
Flesh come to conquer death
On our
behalf, triumphant
To rid us
of resistance
At manger-side, we glance into the stares
Of exhausted young parents
Greatly relieved their secret
Can now be told—and will be told
Again and
again and again and again
In language
any child can understand
A secret so simple and pure
That we
will tell it over and over
Struggling
to comprehend how it can be
O God, our Maker and Minder,
In kindness, You made us and now
You have made Yourself like us
Gathering a family of choice
A new
people of welcome and trust
A new
lineage of unsurpassed love and grace
You, the Child, invite us to become Your children
To begin
again and find a new way
You alone can carve in us
You, the Child, smile knowingly,
Hold out Your tiny, not-yet-scarred
hand
And say
Follow Me.
—Christmas,
2012
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