CHRISTMAS.
What is the Christ of God?
Is it His touch,
His sign, His making known.
His coming forth
from out the all-alone.
The stretching of a rod,
Abloom with His intent,
From the
invisible. He made words so:
And souls, whose
endless life should be to
know
What the worlds meant.
Christ is the dear “I Am.”
The Voice that
the cool garden-stillness brake,
The Human Heart
to human hearts that
spake,
Long
before Abraham.
The
Word, the though, the breath,-
All chrism of God that in creation lay,
Was born unto a life and name this day;
Jesus
of Nazareth.
With
man whom He had made
God came down side by side. Not from the
Skies
In thunders, but through brother-lips and
eyes,
His
messages He said.
Close to our Sin He
Leant,
Whispering, “Be clean!” The High, the
Awful-holy,-
Utterly meek,-ah! Infinitely lowly,-
Unto
our burden bent
The
might it waited for.
“Daughter be comforted. Thou are made
whole.
Son, be forgen through all thy guilty soul.
Sin-suffer
ye-no more!”
“O
dumb, deaf, blind, receive!
Shall he Who shaped the ear not hear your
cry?
Doth He not tenderly see Who made the eye?
Ask
Me that I may give!
“O
Bethany and Nain!
I show your hearts how safe they are with
Me.
I reach into My deep eternity
And
bring your dead again!
“My
kingdom cometh nigh.
Look up and see the lightening from afar.
Over My Bethlehem behold the star
Quickening
the eastern sky.
“From
end to end, always,
The same Lord, I am with you. Down the
night,
My visible steps make all the mystery
bright. Lo! It is Christmas day!”
-Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney.
