Texas Baptist Forum

Always a Christmas

There’ll always be a Christmas

So long as truth remains in trust,

Conceived with promise held inviolate;

So long as faith confirms the birth

Of Day Spring’s glad arriving;

So long as Wise Men find the star,

And Shepherds know where angels are;

So long as gifts are brought with care,

And joyful laughter fills the air;

So long as hope responds in kind,

To share till breathless news divine;

So long as children dream their dreams,

Of lions and lambs in single ring;

So long as streets are free from hate,

Where young and old can congregate;

So long as fields awake to green,

Long Winter’s wind still welcomes Spring,

So long as angels anthem sing,

And Virgin’s child is crowned the King –

There’ll always be a Christmas.

BO Baker

 

Editor’s Note: BO Baker, a longtime Texas Baptist pastor and evangelist, has written a Christmas reflection for the Baptist Standard 34 consecutive years.

 

Unmerited favor

Thanks to the beneficence of a committee in Oslo, another American president has received perhaps one of the greatest honors that man can bestow—the Nobel Peace Prize. In awarding the prize, the committee praised Barack Obama for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Although I disagree with many of our president’s policies, I believe we can draw inspiration from this event in his life.

He was offered a free gift of great value, having done nothing to earn it, and would have been foolish to turn it down.

All he had to do to receive it was to accept it.

There is a greater gift offered not by wise men, but given freely by God. Of course, that would be his Son, the Prince of Peace.

Much like Obama’s Nobel Prize, the gift God offers is free. We’ve done nothing to earn it, and we’d be exceedingly foolish to reject it. To receive it, all we need do is accept it.

Obama’s award is paper, parchment, metal and the lauding of men. The gift God offers is eternal salvation and the right to be in the company of the true saints.

Perhaps we should thank the Nobel committee for demonstrating, however inadvertently, an aspect of God’s love and grace. And perhaps we should thank President Obama for showing us how to accept an undeserved, unmerited gift—with humility, thankfulness and an awareness of his (and our) own shortcomings.

How appropriate for this Christmas time.

Tom Hightower

Amarillo