Christmas

CHRISTMAS STORY: The Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke

January 5, 2019

PREFACE It is now some years since this little story was set afloat on the sea of books. It is not a man-of-war, nor even a high-sided merchantman; only a small, peaceful sailing-vessel. Yet it has had rather an adventurous voyage. Twice it has fallen into the hands of pirates. The tides have carried it to far countries. It has been passed through the translator’s port of entry into German, French, Armenian, Turkish, and perhaps some other foreign regions. Once I caught sight of it flying the outlandish flag of a brand-new phonetic language along the coasts of France; and once it was claimed by a dealer in antiquities as a long-lost legend of the Orient. Best of all, it has slipped quietly into many a far-away harbor that I have [...]

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: You Want This Truth by Frederick Denison Maurice

January 5, 2019

From Love Came Down And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) Some will tell you that people are not as merry now on this day as they used to be. One says that this is a grievous thing, that we should try if we can to bring back the old times. Another says, “This cannot be, people are wiser now. They know that one day is no better than another; the thing is to be real Christians in our hearts.” Another tells us “Christmas Day is forgotten, because that which Christmas Day speaks of does not signify so much as it once did. It was good for the people who lived a thousand years ago to believe such tales; but we have [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: The Last Dream Of Old Oak by Hans Christian Andersen

January 4, 2019

In the forest, high up on the steep shore, and not far from the open seacoast, stood a very old oak-tree. It was just three hundred and sixty-five years old, but that long time was to the tree as the same number of days might be to us; we wake by day and sleep by night, and then we have our dreams. It is different with the tree; it is obliged to keep awake through three seasons of the year, and does not get any sleep till winter comes. Winter is its time for rest; its night after the long day of spring, summer, and autumn. On many a warm summer, the Ephemera, the flies that exist for only a day, had fluttered about the old oak, enjoyed life and felt happy and if, for a moment, one of the tiny creatures rested on one of his large fresh [...]

POETRY: Love Came Down At Christmas by Christina Georgina Rossetti

January 4, 2019

Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, love divine; Love was born at Christmas, Star and angels gave the sign. Worship we the Godhead, Love incarnate, love divine; Worship we our Jesus: But wherewith for sacred sign? Love shall be our token, Love shall be yours and love be mine, Love to God and to all men, Love for plea and gift and [...]

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: He Has But One Name—Savior by Phillips Brooks

January 4, 2019

From Love Came Down And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1:14) There is one group which no one who thinks of Christmas Day forgets: “There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.” How familiar and how full of rich association these old words have grown! Try to think what their story must mean, what contribution it makes to the symphony of meaning in which all these attendants on the birth of Christ unite. Remember what is told us. They heard a song of angels, a voice from Heaven telling them that a Savior was born in Bethlehem, and that glory had come to God and peace had come to Earth. Then they can only say to one another, “Let us go to Bethlehem and see this strange [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: A Christmas Dream, And How It Came to Be True by Louisa May Alcott

January 3, 2019

“I’m so tired of Christmas I wish there never would be another one!” exclaimed a discontented-looking little girl, as she sat idly watching her mother arrange a pile of gifts two days before they were to be given. “Why, Effie, what a dreadful thing to say! You are as bad as old Scrooge; and I’m afraid something will happen to you, as it did to him, if you don’t care for dear Christmas,” answered Mamma, almost dropping the silver horn she was filling with delicious candies. “Who was Scrooge? What happened to him?” asked Effie, with a glimmer of interest in her listless face, as she picked out the sourest lemon-drop she could find; for nothing sweet suited her just then. “He was one [...]

POETRY: A Christmas Hymn by Richard Wilbur

January 3, 2019

And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. (Luke 19:39-40) A stable-lamp is lighted Whose glow shall wake the sky; The stars shall bend their voices, And every stone shall cry. And every stone shall cry, And straw like gold shall shine; A barn shall harbor heaven, A stall become a shrine. This child through David’s city Shall ride in triumph by; The palm shall strew its branches, And every stone shall cry. And every stone shall cry, Though heavy, dull, and dumb, And lie within the roadway To pave his kingdom come. Yet he shall be forsaken, And yielded up to [...]

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: This Is Truly Peace by John Donne

January 3, 2019

From The Showing Forth of Christ The whole life of Christ was a continual passion; others die martyrs but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha (where he was crucified) even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after and the manger as uneasy at first as his cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas Day and his Good Friday are but the evening and the morning of one and the same day. And as even his birth is his death, so every action and passage that manifests Christ to us is his birth. Every manifestation of Christ to the world, to the church, to a particular soul, is an Epiphany, a Christmas Day. Now there is [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: The Legend Of The Christmas Tree by Lucy Wheelock

January 2, 2019

Two little children were sitting by the fire one cold winter’s night. All at once they heard a timid knock at the door, and one ran to open it. There, outside in the cold and the darkness, stood a child with no shoes upon his feet and clad in thin, ragged garments. He was shivering with cold, and he asked to come in and warm himself. “Yes, come,” cried both the children; “you shall have our place by the fire. Come in!” They drew the little stranger to their warm seat and shared their supper with him, and gave him their bed, while they slept on a hard bench. In the night they were awakened by strains of sweet music and, looking out, they saw a band of children in shining garments approaching the house. They [...]

POETRY: O That With Yonder Sacred Throng by Marci Johnson

January 2, 2019

The things of this world do not seem to be going according to plan. For one thing, the altar’s on fire. The pastor hasn’t noticed, thinks the audience is unusually moved by his words his sharp suit the way his thick hair waves at a part so straight the Israelites could pass through to the Promised Land with out detour. A man in back has gone for the fire extinguisher while we like sheep look to one another to gauge reaction. Shall we finish the final hymn? Remark on the too obvious symbolism? No, let’s throw our bodies on the flames Old Testament style like a people uncivilized by bulletins and keyboards and cupped ceiling lights but living in the raw wind, the hunger, the sand in our upturned [...]

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: Some Of Us Are Still Blind by John Newton

January 2, 2019

From Love Came Down In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest Heaven, and on Earth peace among those whom he favors!” (Luke 2:8, 13-14) The gratification of the great, the wealthy, and the gay was chiefly consulted in the late exhibitions in Westminster Abbey. But notwithstanding the expense of the preparations, and the splendid appearance of the auditory, I may take it for granted that the shepherds who were honored with the first information of the birth of [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: Solace by Linda Grace Hoyer

January 1, 2019

From The New Yorker Ada dropped a match into the heap of Christmas paper at the edge of the wood and watched it burn the red tissue in which one of the gifts from her son, Christopher, had been wrapped. It was a clear day, with a stiff breeze from the northwest. She wore faded bluejeans with unravelling cuffs and a red mackinaw that had belonged to her husband, Marty. An inch of snow had fallen during the night and, against a cloudless sky, the balsam fir that Ada’s mother had planted to add a touch of green to the gray woods in winter gently waved its wide branches. With snow on the ground and the wind coming the way it was, the risk of setting fire to the woods was minimal, Ada thought. But even while she prodded the pile of [...]

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: Press Forward Eagerly by Isaac Williams

January 1, 2019

From Love Came Down The Circumcision (Holy Name) After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. (Luke 2:21) The day of the circumcision tells us that to follow Christ we must be in a manner dead to this world while we are in it; that we must not seek to do our own will or follow our own pleasure, if we would learn to love God now and be with God hereafter. If this seems a hard saying, let us ask the world what it has to promise. It will tell us, as on this day, that if we fix our hearts upon anything on Earth, it will very soon depart from us, or we shall depart from it and leave it behind. A consideration of the fleetness of [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: Frozen Charlotte: A Chilling Tale Of New Year’s Eve by Luke Bauserman

December 31, 2018

The tale of Frozen Charlotte was originally written as poem called “A Corpse Going to a Ball” by Maine journalist Seba Smith in 1843. Smith said he was inspired to write the poem in 1840 when he read a newspaper account of a young woman who froze to death while riding to a New Year’s ball. His poem was eventually set to music and it made its way into the national folk music of the United States. Now days there are several versions, going by the names “Young Charlotte,” “Fair Charlotte” and “Frozen Charlotte.” The story and song were so popular that there were even Frozen Charlotte dolls produced from the 1850s to the 1920s. These dolls were molded as a single piece of china. Sometimes they were baked into Christmas [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: Christmas At The Hollow Tree Inn by Albert Bigelow Paine

December 30, 2018

Once upon a time, he said, when the Robin, and Turtle, and Squirrel, and Jack Rabbit had all gone home for the winter, nobody was left in the Hollow Tree except the ‘Coon and ‘Possum and the old black Crow. Of course the others used to come back and visit them pretty often, and Mr. Dog, too, now that he had got to be good friends with all the Deep Woods people, and they thought a great deal of him when they got to know him better. Mr. Dog told them a lot of things they had never heard of before, things that he’d learned at Mr. Man’s house, and maybe that’s one reason why they got to liking him so well. He told them about Santa Claus, for one thing, and how the old fellow came down the chimney on Christmas Eve [...]

POETRY: Shepherd’s Song At Christmas by Langston Hughes

December 30, 2018

Look there at the star! I, among the least, Will arise and take A journey to the East. But what shall I bring As a present for the King? What shall I bring to the Manger? I will bring a song, A song that I will sing, A song for the King In the Manger. Watch out for my flocks, Do not let them stray. I am going on a journey Far, far away. But what shall I bring As a present for the Child? What shall I bring to the Manger? I will bring a lamb, Gentle, meek, and mild, A lamb for the Child In the Manger. I’m just a shepherd boy, Very poor I am— But I know there is A King in Bethlehem. What shall I bring As a present for Him? What shall I bring to the Manger? I will bring my heart And give my heart to Him. I will bring my heart To the [...]

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: Why Do We Dally? by Charles Henry Brent

December 30, 2018

From Christmas Haste, a sermon They came with haste, and found both Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger. (Luke 2:16) The shepherd lads animate the Christmas story with their racing feet, as a generation later two running disciples the Easter narrative, illustrating the demeanor of every earnest character in the presence of a new phase of truth. Vehement desire binds wings to the feet. Need rouses desire; responsibility challenges capacity. Few of us have heard our desire sing its full song; few have plumbed the true depth of our own capacity. So they made haste – those shepherd folk – because the parched lips of high desire were within reach of cooling streams, because the restless wings of human searching were [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: The Carol Sing by John Updike

December 29, 2018

From Early Stories 1953-1975 Surely one of the natural wonders of Tarbox was Mr. Burley at the Town Hall carol sing. How he would jubilate, how he would God-rest those merry gentlemen, how he would boom out when the male voices became Good King Wenceslas: Mark my footsteps, good my page; Treat thou in them boldly: Thou shalt find the winter’s rage Freeze thy blood less co-oh-ldly. When he hit a good “oh,” standing beside him was like being inside a great transparent Christmas ball. He had what you’d have to call a God-given bass. This year, we other male voices just peck at the tunes: Wendell Huddlestone, whose hardware store has become the pizza place where the dropouts collect after dark; Squire Wentworth, who is still [...]

POETRY: Christmas Child by Paul Willis

December 29, 2018

When you were born, sycamore leaves were brown and falling. They sifted through the stable door and laid their hands upon your cheek. Sunlight bent through cracks in the wall and found your lips. It was morning now. Joseph slept, curled on the straw in a corner. Your mother offered her breast to you, the warm milk of humankind, of kindness. You drank from the spongy flesh as you could, a long way now from vinegar, but closer, closer, closer than the night before. She cradles you, O Jesus Christ, born in blood and born to bleed, for this brief dawn a simple child, searching the nipple, stirring among the whisper, the touch, of [...]

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: There Is No Joy Like The Joy Of A Savior by Lancelot Andrewes

December 29, 2018

From Love Came Down But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11) I know not why it is that when we hear of saving or of a Savior, our mind is carried to the saving of our skin, and other saving we think not of. But there is another life not to be forgotten, and the dangers and destruction there are more to be feared than those here, and it would be well sometimes to remember that. Besides our skin and flesh we have a soul, and that is our better part by far, and also has need of a Savior. It has a destruction out of which and a destroyer from which it should [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: Why The Sea Is Salt

December 28, 2018

A folktale from Norway Once on a time, but it was a long, long time ago, there were two brothers, one rich and one poor. Now, one Christmas eve, the poor one hadn’t so much as a crumb in the house, either of meat or bread, so he went to his brother to ask him for something to keep Christmas with, in God’s name. It was not the first time his brother had been forced to help him, and you may fancy he wasn’t very glad to see his face, but he said, “If you will do what I ask you to do, I’ll give you a whole flitch [side] of bacon.” So the poor brother said he would do anything, and was full of thanks. “Well, here is the flitch,” said the rich brother, “and now go straight to hell.” [...]

POETRY: Holy Innocents by Christina Rossetti

December 28, 2018

Sleep, little Baby, sleep; The holy Angels love thee, And guard thy bed, and keep A blessed watch above thee. No spirit can come near Nor evil beast to harm thee: Sleep, Sweet, devoid of fear Where nothing need alarm thee. The Love which doth not sleep, The eternal Arms surround thee: The Shepherd of the sheep In perfect love hath found thee. Sleep through the holy night, Christ-kept from snare and sorrow, Until thou wake to light And love and warmth [...]

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: This Love Is Not Like Our Love by Madeleine L’Engle

December 28, 2018

From The Irrational Season Holy Innocents’ Day is a stumbling block for me. This is a festival? This remembering the slaughter of all those babies under two years of age whose only wrong was to have been born at a time when three Wise Men came out of the East to worship a great King; and Herod, in panic lest his Earthly power be taken away from him by this unknown infant potentate, ordered the execution of all the children who might grow up to dethrone him. Jesus grew up to heal and preach at the expense of all those little ones, and I have sometimes wondered if his loving gentleness with small children may not have had something to do with this incredible price. And it causes me to ask painful questions about the love of God. [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: The Burglar’s Christmas by Elizabeth L. Seymour

December 27, 2018

Note: Elizabeth L. Seymour is a pseudonym of Willa Cather Two very shabby looking young men stood at the corner of Prairie avenue and Eightieth street, looking despondently at the carriages that whirled by. It was Christmas Eve, and the streets were full of vehicles; florists’ wagons, grocers’ carts and carriages. The streets were in that half-liquid, half-congealed condition peculiar to the streets of Chicago at that season of the year. The swift wheels that spun by sometimes threw the slush of mud and snow over the two young men who were talking on the corner. “Well,” remarked the elder of the two, “I guess we are at our rope’s end, sure enough. How do you feel?” “Pretty shaky. The [...]

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: Signs Of A Kingdom Of God Are Among Us by Frederick Denison Maurice

December 27, 2018

From a sermon on St. John the Evangelist I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 8:11-12) This is Saint John’s Day. We have read from the Apocalypse words that are beautiful commemorations of it. They tell us how the Apostle himself wished his contemporaries to think of him. He had borne witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ. He was their brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. But “the heirs of the kingdom,” so the text goes, “will be thrown into [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: The Legend of the Christmas Rose by Selma Lagerlöf

December 26, 2018

Robber Mother, who lived in Robbers’ Cave in Göinge Forest, went down to the village one day on a begging tour. Robber Father, who was an outlawed man, did not dare to leave the forest, but had to content himself with lying in wait for the wayfarers who ventured within its borders. But at that time travelers were not very plentiful in Southern Skåne. If it so happened that the man had had a few weeks of ill luck with his hunt, his wife would take to the road. She took with her five youngsters, and each youngster wore a ragged leathern suit and birch-bark shoes and bore a sack on his back as long as himself. When Robber Mother stepped inside the door of a cabin, no one dared refuse to give her whatever she demanded; for she was not [...]

POETRY: St. Stephen’s Day by John Keble

December 26, 2018

As rays around the source of light Stream upward ere he glow in sight, And watching by his future flight Set the clear heavens on fire; So on the King of Martyrs wait Three chosen bands, in royal state, And all Earth owns, of good and great, Is gather’d in that choir. One presses on, and welcomes death: One calmly yields his willing breath, Nor slow, nor hurrying, but in faith Content to die or live: And some, the darlings of their Lord, Play smiling with the flame and sword, And, ere they speak, to His sure word Unconscious witness give. Foremost and nearest to His throne, By perfect robes of triumph known, And likest Him in look and tone, The holy Stephen kneels, With steadfast gaze, as when the sky Flew open to his fainting eye, [...]

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: How May I Bear Witness? by Frederick Denison

December 26, 2018

From a sermon for St. Stephen’s Day Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. (Acts 7:56) When Stephen said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,” that truth which he had been proclaiming presented itself to him just as actually as any visible thing presents itself to the eye. It was not a doctrine of the incarnation that he acknowledged in that hour – a mere doctrine would have stood him in little stead. It was a person who stood before him, a person on whom he might call, in whom he might trust. He was sure it was life and substance he was in contact with. It was a Son of Man, the fellow worker and fellow-sufferer with every human [...]

CHRISTMAS STORY: Candle In The Forest by Temple Bailey

December 25, 2018

The small girl’s mother was saying, “The onions will be silver, and the carrots will be gold –” “And the potatoes will be ivory,” said the small girl, and they laughed together. The small girl’s mother had a big white bowl in her lap, and she was cutting up vegetables. The onions were the hardest, because she cried over them. “But our tears will be pearls,” said the small girl’s mother, and they laughed at that and dried their eyes, and found the carrots much easier, and the potatoes the easiest of all. Then the next-door-neighbor came in and said, “What are you doing?” “We are making a vegetable pie for our Christmas dinner,” said the small girl’s mother. “And the onions are silver, and the carrots are [...]

POETRY: Mary At The Nativity by Tania Runyan

December 25, 2018

The angel said there would be no end to his kingdom. So for three hundred days I carried rivers and cedars and mountains. Stars spilled in my belly when he turned. Now I can’t stop touching his hands, the pink pebbles of his knuckles, the soft wrinkle of flesh between his forefinger and thumb. I rub his fingernails as we drift in and out of sleep. They are small and smooth, like almond petals. Forever, I will need nothing but these. But all night, the visitors crowd around us. I press his psalms to my lips in silence. They look down in anticipation, as if they expect him to spill coins from his hands or raise a gold scepter and turn swine into angels. Isn’t this wonder enough that yesterday he was inside me, and now he nuzzles next to [...]