Free Silent Night by Inc. Barbour Publishing Page B

the gifts opened, when the hubbub dies down, wouldn’t that be the perfect time to listen awhile? Then take that moment of communion forward and find a space for it in each day of the new year.
    The angels still sing. We just need to lay aside our earthly cares and still our earthly noises long enough to hear them. No, we need to do more than that!
    As Sears points out, those angels won’t be satisfied until they hear us singing “that glorious song of old” right back at them!
    Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God
.
    LUKE 12:8

O Little Town of Bethlehem
    O little town of Bethlehem
,
How still we see thee lie!

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by
.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting Light;

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee tonight
.

The Unchanging Promise
    B ethlehem today doesn’t bear much resemblance to the Bethlehem of biblical times. It seems like everything changes—but some truths are eternal.
    In 1865 Rector Phillips Brooks of Philadelphia was given a wonderful view of one such truth. Journeying on horseback from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, Brooks stopped for the night in the hills above his destination.
    Even in 1865 Bethlehem would have been quite different from Jesus’ time, but Brooks was struck by the fact that this sleeping town was where the Lord came to earth. That fact would never change, and neither would the message He brought.
    Assisting in a Christmas service in the “little town,” Brooks seemed to hear voices he knew well proclaiming the wonder of that holy birth.
    He recorded his emotions in a poem that he showed to church organist Lewis Redner. Legend has it that the tune came to Redner on Christmas Eve and the Sunday school choir sang it for the first time the very next day.
    As Brooks sat in the silence of the hills, that first nativity must not have seemed so long ago, because the consequences of it were still very present in his mind, just as they are still present in the world today.
    As he points out in his beautiful carol, “Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.”
    Even in an age of security fences and army patrols, wherever children pray, wherever misery cries out, wherever charity watches and “faith holds wide the door,” Jesus will be there.
    Bethlehem, like the rest of the world, has changed and will continue to change—but, as Brooks realized while watching that sleeping town, wherever a willing heart calls Christ to come in and stay, sins will be cast out and, no matter how many years have passed since the first one, it will be Christmas once more.
    And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel
.
    M ATTHEW 2:6

Love Came Down at Christmas
    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?

What Marks Us Out
    C hristina Georgina Rossetti was the daughter of an Italian political refugee. The family settled in London early in the nineteenth century and made a lasting impact in the artistic community. Christina’s brother, Dante, went on to help found a new painting style with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Meanwhile, she acquired her own fame as a poet—one of her most famous works being the poem that went on to become the hymn “In the Bleak Midwinter.”
    The interests of brother and sister combined when Dante asked Christina to model for his painting “The Girlhood of Mary Virgin,” in which she, as Mary, is shown embroidering with her mother while a baby angel awaits the time to tell her of her destiny as the Lord’s mother.
    God became Christina’s abiding passion. She turned down at least two marriage