The seemingly fragile and ordinary mortality of the infant Jesus has always gripped my imagination. Really, it has haunted me. What was it like to stand there, alongside the shepherds, and gaze at this tiny child who would change the world more profoundly than any other individual in history? Did anyone, other than his parents, have any idea at all who he really was?
In your mind’s eye, examine him closely: The tiny fingers and toes, the smooth forehead, the pale, soft feet, almost too small to be real. Is there anything about him that hints at the power he will one day bring to bear on the wind and waves of Galilee? Look directly into his eyes. Do you see any clue to the great mystery we call “the incarnation”?
In Bethlehem, one winter night a child was born by candle light And he looked like any other child in his mother’s arms. Nothing about him told that a mystery would soon unfold.
To see him there, so small and sweet, with tiny hands and tender feet What if you were told this child would hold the world within his hands? You wouldn’t see the slightest trace of sorrow on his moonlit face And it wouldn’t seem, no, you’d never dream that the world was in his hands.
The secrets of that Christmas day, the very stars would soon betray
When their light shone down on the sleeping towns of Palestine.
Shepherds would find the one the angels had said would come.
To see him there, so small and sweet, with tiny hands and tender feet
What if you were told this child would hold the world within his hands?
You wouldn’t see the slightest trace of sorrow on his moonlit face
And it wouldn’t seem, no, you’d never dream that the world was in his hands.
Who could have known it? Was it written in the starlit sky?
Who could have heard God’s name in the strains of Mary’s lullaby?
To see him there, so small and sweet, with tiny hands and tender feet
What if you were told this child would hold the world within his hands?
You wouldn’t see the slightest trace of sorrow on his moonlit face
Yet his tears would fall to heal the earth, His wounds would give us second birth.
Still, it wouldn’t seem, no, you’d never dream that the world was in his hands.
Words and music by David Edwards and Randy Stonehill
Copyright ©2001 Mountain Park Music/Stonehillian Music (BMI/ASCAP).
Used by permission.
Leave a Reply