I imagine a torch glowing on that first Christmas night,
Filling the tiny stable with soft flickering light.

And in the light’s reflection stood a manger full of hay,
Serving as a cradle for the newborn King to lay.

But as the light of the torch across the manger passed,
Perhaps, upon the ground, a shadow of the cross was cast.

A reflection of the reason the Savior was born that day,
A foreshadow of the death that soon would come His way…

So during this Christmas season as we celebrate His birth,
Let's not forget the reason that Jesus came to earth.

Let us praise Him with all our heart, an offering truly small,
In the shadow of the cross which He endured for all.

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he
humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
Philippians 2:5-8.

©1997 A. Mitchell Moore, Jr.