Immanuel: God with us

Loves furnace in a little room.

Forget not Trinity holy and glorious

That heaven’s bright prince came down to bestow on us

His love, as babe, into Mary’s fair womb

For nine months, he who is angels lord

Was hidden, love’s furnace, in a little room

Humbler than all, who all adored.

A pure lamb, he stole down to earth

To free us from our sin so blind .

No city home will shield his birth

His mother a stable for bed must find;

There poorest of the poor she lay

Nor wine nor meat for hungers sting

In the rude confines of the cattle bay

Where God was born apostle’s king.

Cold and exile He did not scorn

In the donkey’s manger that holy morn.

Tadg Gaelach O Suilleabhain.

When we contemplate that the fiery furnace of love, who created  the worlds, confined himself to a growing embryo in a poor  young girl we are overcome by wonder and awe.

He identified himself with the poor, the homeless and the refugee. He entered the world that He had created in all its grime, confusion and suffering. The God we worship and adore did not hold himself apart but entered into the very depths of all its sorrows and suffering.

This is who we worship this Christmas, Immanuel, meaning God with us, He enters into every joy and sorrow which we experience.   He is especially with the poor the homeless and the refugee, so we this Christmas each one of us to do what we are able to bring peace and equality into a world which so desperately needs it at present .  So let each of us in the coming year do our little bit to bring about a better world, as we submit to and obey a better king, King Jesus.