He Came in the Quiet

Before the world took breath in morning song,

the promise kindled patient as a seed in winter,

a whispered covenant folded into the dark.

Prophets held the word like a lamp,

waiting on the hinge of time.

An angel bent the sky and spoke a name,

and a humble home became the ear of heaven.

She heard the world rearrange itself 

a promise pressed into her womb,

a grave expectation turned to blossom.

There was no heraldry in the place of birth,

only the hush of ox-hum and the close, warm breath

of ordinary lives. A manger cradled holy poverty;

swaddling cloths wrapped the infinite in smallness.

The King came not with drums, but with a mother’s lullaby.

Outside, the hills kept watch as shepherds trembled,

and heaven spilled its plain light across their fear.

Angels poured a chorus into the night:

not a song of judgement but of mercy’s arrival,

a proclamation: peace to the searching, goodwill to the small.

A star, relentless and true, cut a path through history,

leading strangers with foreign feet and bowed gifts

to kneel where a child lay gold for sovereignty,

frankincense for prayer, myrrh for what sorrow will demand.

Even the wise were undone by the holiness of simplicity.

This is the mystery: heaven stooped and took a breath we could touch;

the Word folded into flesh, speech made kin with skin.

Not to astonish the mighty, but to redeem the ordinary 

to stitch grace into the seams of daily bread,

to make a home of the human heart.

Listen: the cries of that night still cleave to the world,

a clarion for the lost, a lantern for the weary.

In the soft circumference of that newborn cry

we find the map back to ourselves. to mercy, to courage,

to a love that keeps its vows across centuries.

Come, then, with open hands and unguarded hearts;

receive the gift placed in lowly sight.

Let the manger teach you the economy of grace:

what is greatest arrives as smallness, and strength as gentleness.

Walk from that stable into the cold world warmed anew.

For the miracle of Christmas is not only birth,

but the daring of God who chooses to dwell among us 

Emmanuel, God with us, that we might not be alone.

And so we lift our imperfect songs into the sky:

not merely to remember, but to be remade.