How Did It Feel?

The virgin’s scream pierced the darkness 
and startled restless livestock.
The curse of Eve had traveled history 
to even the stable in Bethlehem.
The newborn cried to clear his lungs 
and gasped His first of earthly air.
His damp body shivered in unfamiliar breeze;
she wrapped him tightly, held him to breast.
He suckled, hungrily seeking comfort
in that strange, dark stable;
the human nourishment soothed an unfamiliar gnaw
in the belly of He Who is the Bread of Life.

The baby caught her loving gaze 
and feeling safe and warm he cooed.
Across the stable a roosting dove cooed
in harmonious melody with its Creator.
Joseph shuffled and rustled and cleaned the manger, 
lined it with the earthy scent of straw
to make a bed for the baby Savior.
And the sheep bleated and the cattle mooed, 
their sleep disturbed by the unexpected,
when the Son of God become the Son of Man.

How did it feel to leave your glorious home,
and the loving embrace of your Father,
to shiver in the dark and the cold and the dirt,
embraced by a dust-formed mortal?
How did it feel to leave your heavenly home,
angelic host singing your praise,
to sleep on a bed made of animal’s feed,
dove, cow, and lamb singing praise?

Yet you came and You loved
and you served and you gave;
you suffered as frail earthly man
walking Earth as in an alien land.
How did it feel to suffer rejection
and quietly give your life in our stead?

But death, hell, and the tomb 
had no hold on perfection.
Evil trembled in defeat as
holiness pierced the darkness.


How did it feel to crush the serpent under your feet?
How did it feel to set your children free for eternity?