Christmas Music

Hymn #54, Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal
Text by Jaroslav Vajda
This hymn is almost chokingly beautiful with the setting by Carl Schalk.

Where shepherds lately knelt and kept the angel's word,
I come in half belief , a pilgrim strangely stirred;
But there is room and welcome there for me,
But there is room and welcome there for me.

In that unlikely place I find him as they said:
Sweet newborn Babe, how frail! and in a manger bed,
A still, small voice to cry one day for me,
A still, small voice to cry one day for me.

How should I not have known Isaiah would be there,
His prophecies fulfilled? With pounding heart I stare:
A child, a son, the Prince of Peace for me,
A child, a son, the Prince of Peace for me.

Can I, will I forget how Love was born, and burned
Its way into my heart unasked, unforced, unearned,
To die, to live, and not alone for me,
To die, to live, and not alone for me.

We sang this last night in our Christmas Eve Service.  I am still baffled trying to understand what war Sarah Palin and Fox News think they are waging.  It seems to be something about the Second Amendment and whether Santa Claus is black or white.  Such a "war" just trivializes Christmas all the more.  As for me, I know what I need:  a Christ child whose love "burned its way into my heart unasked, unforced, unearned" and whose voice will "cry one day for me."  Sarah and Fox and the rest of the Neo-Pharisees can have their phony war. The battle is already over.  Christ already won it without their help.