During the Christmas Season our thoughts rightly ponder on the amazing gift God gave to all people on earth. The story is so familiar, yet we find ourselves gratefully renewed in spirit every year as we focus on the birth of Jesus.
Our appreciation of sacred Christmas music comes from the creative ways in which Christian composers weave the story of Christ’s birth with beautiful music. Alleluia!
The choral anthem our Sanctuary Choir will bring to us on Christmas Sunday 12/20 this year does an incredible job of helping us to better understand the magnitude of God’s gift through the wording the composer, Ruth Schram, chose to use in her composition, “Christmas Grace.”
Here are some of the words she wove together in her unique style:
“To take God’s Son from heaven, to turn the Lord of all
into a helpless infant, a baby weak and small;
to give to our Creator a fully human face!
THIS, IS Christmas Grace.”
Ruth goes on to also remind us that:
“The feet that walked in splendor on streets of purest gold,
now wrapped in humble swaddling, shiver from the cold. (and)
The hand that Mary holds HUNG the MOON and STARS in PLACE.
THIS, IS Christmas Grace.
R. E. Schram continues by pointing out many more powerful contrasts between the Divine existence Christ knew in heaven with the human life He had on earth by asking us to realize and dwell upon the following VERY IMPORTANT FACT: While living among us, The ALMIGHTY was LOCKED into a single span of time and geographic location. Therefore, Jesus experienced OUR frailty, understood OUR fragile lot and laid aside His power to be Helped, Trained and Taught. (WOW !)
In addition to the special song our Sanctuary Choir brought to both worship services at out church on Thanksgiving Sunday, “Christmas Grace” is another choral number by which you will be blessed if you are present on Christmas Sunday. Come. You’ll be glad you did.
“And now may God who knows us all, watch over those who heed His call and make a place within their hearts for Christ, the Lord, from the manger stall. I pray that God will guide and keep each one who truly seeks.”
Amen,
-Betty-