Advent Calendar and Christmas Poem

Happy December!  For those who want a countdown calendar with scriptures, my sister Shellie drew these cute pictures years ago.  You can print out the calendar (on 2 pages) and pictures, ask a child in your life to color the pictures, then each day read the scriptures and tape a picture in the square. 

 

Kristine Hansen is a friend from the Park 3rd ward who teaches writing at BYU, and she shared this poem with me. It seems fitting at Christmas time to remember not only the condescension of Christ at his birth, but also the purpose behind his birth, to know us, to rescue us, and to bring us to a potential much greater than we can even imagine.

Let Us Come Boldly

Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Did it begin with his birth

In a cold and comfortless cave—

His ability to feel our pain?

Or when he felt faint from fatigue

Or from hunger and thirst,

Did he first know human frailty?

When the prince of this world,

Finding him weak in the wilderness,

Proffered power and dominion,

Did he, though resisting, not taste the lure?

When his friends became sick,

And some of them died,

Did he not grieve and mourn?

When he was rejected, despised, and betrayed,

Abandoned, then beaten and killed,

What more could he bear?

What condescension is here! What love!

Though he were a Son, he came down

To wade through all woes so that he might feel

As we feel, and know as we know.

And thus when we kneel to ask for his help,

We find him a friend whose faithfulness is firm,

Whose understanding is complete.

For he has plumbed the depths of all infirmity

To form the reservoir of love that flows

Into the never-ending fountain of his grace.

Now having ascended again on high,

Christ sits on a throne and bids us come

Boldly to him with all our needs,

For he is willing to salve all our sorrows

And dispense mercy from his vast stores.

Written by
Kristine Hansen