Contemplation
2. Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by his cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here came the Wise Men from Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials born to be our Friend.
He knows our need– to our weakness is no stranger.
Behold your King, before him lowly bend!
Behold your King, before him lowly bend!
A friend of mine shared how his prayer life had dried up. The words he was speaking just-in-his-head were confusing and jumbled. So he tried writing down his prayers, a very Bible-Psalms thing to do. And now he finds prayer intelligible and meaningful. Speaking out our prayers is another way of making them more real. The late evangelist from York, David Watson, used to speak out all of his prayers.
The internal fuzz of thoughts are forced out into a coherent stream of words, either in speech or in writing. It's not that the Lord only hears linear prayers, it's more that we can more own and mean them when they are spoken or written.
Singing the carols gives one kind of joy, pausing to contemplate their words another source of delight. Our carolling author has drawn out three comforting truths from the Bible account of the wise men in the second verse of O Holy Night.
Drawn by star or faith
The wise men were led to Jesus by the light of a supernatural star but we are led to Jesus Christ by faith:
Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by his cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here came the Wise Men from Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger,
It's a charming parallel! They were drawn by a star, but we are drawn to the Lord Jesus, the divine risen Son of God, through the supernatural gift of faith. Without faith we could not have seen who he was, or have appreciated his glory, or believed on his name.
We should surely thank God more often for the remarkable divine gift of faith!
No stranger to our Weakness
The sheer vulnerability of the baby in the manger reminds us that the Lord Jesus is no stranger to weakness.
In all our trials born to be our Friend.
He knows our need– to our weakness is no stranger.
Oh how weak we are! Think of our smallness, our fears, our frailty, our many weaknesses, or battles, our stumbles and falls! No, Jesus does not understand falls, for he was sinless, but he understands the hellish fires of temptation, he understands mental anguish and he understands physical pain.
In the hero stories of the world, the victor is often a powerful figure: someone to be admired, but only at a distance! But in our Hero Story we have someone who has walked in our moccasins, for mile after mile after mile. He knows our needs.
So to worship!
So, urges the hymn writer, like the wise men, let us bow low before our king. "On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and worshipped him." (Matthew 2:11). Let us bow on bended knee and offer our honour, adoration and worship to Jesus Christ, our heavenly King.
Behold your King, before him lowly bend!
Behold your King, before him lowly bend!
A SONG FOR THE DAY
Here's a Christmas song you may never have heard before, from Amy Grant. Listen HERE.
A PRAYER FOR THE DAY
Our loving faithful Father,
We thank you for the marvel of your ways. We thank you that our Hero, your glorious King, was not born in Jerusalem or Rome, London or New York, but in little Bethlehem and in an unknown manger.
We thank you that his utter vulnerability as an infant child reminds us that he has known weakness, as we ourselves do.
Thank you for your wise Hero ways. And thank you for the divine gift of faith.
Teach us to bow low and worship the King, as did those wise men of old.
We worship you and the whole Triune God in Jesus' Name,
Amen
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