"What Does Christmas Have to Do with Easter?"

Hi Everybody,
At our staff devotions yesterday our new pastor/head of staff at First Presbyterian Church in Boulder read the following poem, assisted by a female reader. It addresses the above question, which may particularly be helpful for those who might attend services only at Christmas and Easter (pretty much someone like me when I was young).

I hope you'll find it as moving and helpful as we did.

Advent blessings,
Carl

"Enchantment--The Christmas Connection" by Lee Magness

Female voice:     "So God stopped time for 33 years/And he pitched a tent of flesh/Which he unfolded one night/And enfolded the next.

Male voice: "And that moment in which God tread time/Lasting from the darkness to the darkness/From the sunrise to the sunrise/Was called Jesus Christ--

F: In great pain Mary labored over God/And suddenly in merciful agony--

M: A man burst forth from the courtroom/Into the yard filled with a vicious mob--

F: And the mother knelt down/To wrap the baby in swaddling clothes--

M: And they ripped them from his body/And kneeling down, gambled them away--

F: And because there was no room in the inn/She gently laid him--

M: On the wooden beams of a cross/Where they nailed his reaching hands--

F: And the animals heard the baby/And they drew close hoping to be fed--

M: And they bleated and bawled/"Crucify him, Crucify him"

F: And the shepherds on the hillside/Came to see this thing--/Which they thought would soon be past--

M: And asked, "Are you the King of the Jews?"

F: And the wise men came to see Jesus/One brought spices, another perfumes/And a third removed his golden crown

M: And jammed its thorns into his brow--

F: And in that dark Judean night/The new-born baby cried out/Wanting protection from the cold wind--

M: "My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?"

F: And as the star stopped over the manger

M: There was a darkness over the whole land

F: And just before the baby fell asleep

M: He softly cried, "It is finished."

Both: And in that moment of ghastly glory/When Mary lay exhausted with an empty tomb/He said, "I am the resurrection and the life,"/And in the next moment He redeemed the time.