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We Didn’t Know Who You Was
(Christmas Eve)
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Let’s not slice it to death
This time
Let’s simply have observances
Let all the contradictions go
We know there’s folklore involved,
Which should fascinate
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There was such darkness
At hand
Of one kind or another
Of the past, of
The present
Lack of awareness
Of the import of events;
Only to the players
Did things matter,
They in acts
No one to put it all together until Luke
And a little bit in Matthew and in John
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Prophets old and new
We have to say
Knew and know some measure
Of the meaning
Of it all
They are extracted
And we read them, too
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Such dulled and slow senses
Sometimes history goes that way
Sometimes it’s spiritual
The people walked in darkness
There might be other forces, too,
To keep us from the light
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But it is there
The birth is there
Incarnation as a doctrine
Thought some of it at least
Might have been as any birth
A baby in the world
This one in a cave
And that’s unusual
And all around
The mystery
The strangeness
There was adventure in the sky
And from some people
Who in an iron empire
Chose to dedicate another lord,
Another life to follow
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The child is God
But who knew that?
Mary and Joseph
Angels
And the magi knew something
While the shepherds were told something
As good news
This is the messiah!
Who really understood?
How could a baby save the world
Who is not Caesar
With family, tutors, strategists
Sheltered behind stone walls,
Armies out front
That keep the world
For them?
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Well, other parts conspired
Into a birth, a life
That through faith
And later patchwork
Yielded doctrine
And a way
The people of the way
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As on that night
(let’s call it a night)
There would be amazement
There would be awful things as well
But wonder now
And wonder later on
And with us, still
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Praise God, for God is good
God is love
God is a spirit
Who wonders now
And offers light inside the darkness,
The kind of darkness that is not
Romantic but it
Stultifies and kills
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Believe the child
Humbly, take the child in
To dwell with you
Maybe like a foundling, at the start,
Then as a teacher
And a savior
And a temple of salvation
In the city of God
(new heaven)
And on God’s free land
(new Earth)
Forever
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Sweet, little Jesus child,
They made you be born in a manger;
Sweet, little holy child,
We didn’t know who you was.
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Didn’t know you’d come to save us, Lord,
To take our sins away:
Our eyes was blind, we could not see;
We didn’t know who you was.
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We didn’t know who you was
Maybe we should have
Maybe we can, now,
And into new ages
Love revealed
Prophecy fulfilled
The child grows up
We grow up
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And for this night we way
Welcome to the world, child,
And everything that starts
Now
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C L Couch
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could be a choral or a choir reading
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“Sweet, Little Jesus Child” is a song of African American origin. The precise source is unknown, and there are variants and variations.
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This is the third in a creative, liturgical series for Advent and Christmas. The other two parts are the last two days’ posts. I think I’ll work on something else now.
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Photo by Agung Raharja on Unsplash
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clcouch123 
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