Eric Metaxas
I crooned a carol Christmas Eve,The night before that Day of DaysAnd sang in it of our reprieve From death and hell that jingle bell And holly boughs each year retellIn somber and euphoric lays.I sang of One who lost his placeAnd sank to us that He might makeA way for us through endless spaceToward such return as all must yearnBut which ourselves can never earnTo fix our Parents' first mistake.I cried throughout these realms of airThat once to us EternitySent into time a babe so fairThat angels smiled to see the child,That king from paradise exiled To soon our happy Savior be. I bawled a treasury of verseInto the ears of fallen menThat He who came would crush the curseWould strike the spark to light the darkAnd would himself become the arkTo bear us to himself again.I sob this tale of wild joy And weeping laugh at strife and sinNow vanquished by that new-born boyWho comes to us each ChristmastideWho once for us was born and diedThat true life could for us begin.And so to live then you must hideInside the death He died for you.And there inside we safely rideTill truth and grace at last collide Within that bark on Easter’s tideTo heaven where we’ll be His Bride.This Christmas carol now l leave,This somber and euphoric lay,With hopes that all might now receive These tidings of our great reprieve from death and hell that jingle bell And holly boughs each year retell:That Christ was born on Christmas Day!