Christmas is either an inconvenient outrage or an experience so deeply spiritual that no matter how many impostors—death, divorce, estrangement, loneliness, or broken promises—have violated the holiday itself, there is a deeper thing, a sort of epiphany that converts us year after year from the self-pity of the moment to a “new birth,” of the only Deity who was born crying in the night for us all.
There has hardly been a Christmas, since I was able to perceive Christmas, that hasn’t pulled me into some soul-shaking insight that has become a part of my experience. The following lyric was one such epiphany. It was the revelation that the God-child must be planted in me, and that I must be as willing as Mary to bear its ballooning dimensions and face whatever scorn or misunderstanding it may take to carry this inception to its final conclusion. In the process I myself will be filled with the wonder of being chosen and bow my heart to worship in awe of something God has caused me to conceive. I, too, not only must journey to the place my personal history charted for me, but I also must not lose sight of the star as I go; I must believe angels without question. This birthing of God in me is not just for me, but also for others; and this birthing is not just for others, but also for me. In the incubation and delivery process, I, too, will be born, and born, and reborn.
My Heart Would Be Your Bethlehem
My heart would be your Bethlehem,
A shelter for your birth;
My body be your dwelling place,
A sacred temple on this earth.
By holy intervention,
An act of the divine;
In union with mortality
Make incarnation mine.My will would bow in wonderment
Struck silent by the awe
Of angel’s visitation
That wakes my slumbering heart at dawn
With some annunciation
My soul could magnify;
Begin in me a holy seed
That I cannot deny.My mind would make a pilgrimage
Wherever promise shines;
Illuminate eternal things
That I might not mistake the sign.
No matter what it costs me –
Be journey long or far,
Oh, may I trade all treasure rare
For following your star.My heart, my will, my mind, my all
I consecrate to bring
The holy Son of God to earth,
Oh, let the angels sing!
This Christmas I wish for you a fresh life-molding epiphany! May the Incarnation be much more than a sweet story, but a personal recommitment to let this God who reaches for us be incubated in us and delivered to the world, no matter the cost. The cost may get greater as history unfolds, but our very souls must be His dwelling place and His message of transforming love our life force.
Lyric: Gloria Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither and J.D. Miller
© 1991 Gaither Music Company,
Life Gate Music and Lojon Music
