Today is Christmas Eve! So I have decided (as is my custom) to break from the normal readings in order to again share my poem written in 2006. This is most fitting for this evening. Ponder and enjoy:
The First Night Before Christmas
It was me and my buddies out watching our sheep,
The night was quiet, not one of them bleeped.
It was so quiet in fact, we were about to sleep,
When we noticed someone out by the sheep.
Then all at once it became very clear,
No ordinary person was visiting us here.
We were all afraid, but he said “Fear Not.”
And then there were more, and their numbers wouldn’t stop.
He said “go to Bethlehem and see the Baby,
He is the Word of God, there is no maybe.”
He said “the baby’s in Bethlehem, laying in a manger,
He can save you all, from permanent danger.”
Then they all left, praising God for this birth,
Just like they came, they were all gone from the earth.
Then I and my friends said, let’s go if we’re able,
To Bethlehem there, and straight to the stable.
And there we were on a cold winter’s night,
We saw Joseph, and Mary, and Baby, what a sight!
We told them everything right from the start,
But Mary just smiled, kept our words in her heart.
So we left there then in the thick of the night,
Asking you to thank God with all of your might.
Luke 2: 8 – 20: The Reverend John Thomas Frazier (2006)
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and to serve, and to teach others to love and to serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray: (BCP p. 212)
O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light: Grant that we, who have known the mystery of that Light on earth, may also enjoy him perfectly in heaven; where with you and the Holy Spirit he lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
onewhoponders 