I debated whether or not to mix anything into the “What the Christmas Story teaches us about Christ” series I’m working on for Christmas this year — see Joseph, Mary, Simeon and Anna so far. I’ve resisted the entire last week. But I’m finding my engagement with Christmas music so worshipful this year that I can’t take it any more… I have to share a few songs. So, I’ll just post a few leading up to the final message in the series (hopefully on Christmas Day), and I’ll be praying that these are as great a blessing to you in preparing your heart for the coming of the Christ as they have been for me.

Everything Changed

By Eddie Kirkland (album link)

On a night like this, on a broken road,
She is far from sleep, she is far from home
For a baby’s cries tear the still of night;
She wonders why.

The future was bright and clear; she planned for a wedding day.
Her daddy would hold back tears, giving her hand away.
Now all her hope and fear in a cradle lay,
For a baby came and everything changed.

On a night like this, many years ago,
As she held him close, she had come to know
That a mother’s heart could not let him go
And she now knows why.

The future was bright and clear with hope and a promise made.
The Light of the world was near, choirs of angels sang.
Heaven’s exalted King in a manger lay
‘Cause a baby came and everything changed.

When our dreams grow dim and our hearts grow cold,
He is never far from our broken soul.

Gloria! Our God is with us!
Gloria! He has come to save!
Mercy and love now for every generation
For the Savior came and everything changed.

My favorite line in this song is the second to last above, “Mercy and love, now for every generation…” God’s provision of Himself — in the garden, in the exodus, in the law and the prophets, in Israel’s judges and kings, in the discipline of invading armies, in prayer, in worship, in the hope of eternal life … but especially in Jesus — is for everyone in every generation. What we long for and cannot create for ourselves — life as God intended it to be, not severely broken as we now see it — God makes available by His mercy and love.

It’s at Christmas, more than any other time, we remember that God came to us, so that all men, all women, in every generation, could come to Him.

Gloria! Our God is with us!
Gloria! He has come to save!
Mercy and love now for every generation
For the Savior came and everything changed.