Christmas Carol--Act One

I'm a man who has a lot of notebooks. And almost every one of those notebooks has a few lines from a few Christmas carols inside. The accumulation of verse fragments happens in a seven-step process (obviously).

Step one: I'll be sitting somewhere minding my own business.

Step two: I hear a Christmas song.

Step three: I think it's pleasant enough.

Step four: But then I really start paying attention.

Step five: And before too long a line comes along that cuts me straight through.

Step six: When that happens I feel like I have to do something.

Step seven: So I pull out a notebook and write the line down.

So, Brian, here are some fragments. I hope this adds some festivity to your Holiday Season.

No more will sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground.
He'll come and make the blessings flow
Far as the curse was found.

In a vision Ezekiel saw water flowing from underneath the temple toward the baron, inhospitable, desert wilderness to the east.

The Dead Sea valley is as cursed as a place as there can be. On the west it's buffeted by a wall of mountains that trap storms and needed precipitation on the eastern side. The valley itself is physically and likely metaphorically the lowest place on earth. Not only does nothing live in the water--which has so much salt and heavy metals that an 8 oz. glass of it would kill most grown men--but nothing lives in the valley. Period.


Yet, returning to what Ezekiel saw, as the Living Water flowed from the temple--the house of Living Waters--and cut a path to the Dead Sea, trees began to grow, animals returned, fish came and flourished, and all life was restored as the waters and valley were healed.

He will come and make blessing flow everywhere the curse is found. I'm so grateful for that Holy Infant.