This is a Christmas Day worship service, recorded in the Church of the Cross sanctuary.
The service is based on Martin Luther's Christmas hymn, "From Heaven Above," whose lyrics are printed below.
The service will be available here at 12am Christmas morning and available thereafter.
From Heaven Above
1 From heav’n above to earth I come to bring good news to ev’ryone!
Glad tidings of great joy I bring to all the world, and gladly sing:
2 To you this night is born a child of Mary, chosen virgin mild;
this newborn child of lowly birth shall be the joy of all the earth.
3 This is the Christ, God’s Son most high, who hears your sad and bitter cry;
he will himself your Savior be and from all sin will set you free.
4 The blessing which the Father planned the Son holds in his infant hand,
that in his kingdom, bright and fair, you may with us his glory share.
5 These are the signs which you will see to let you know that it is he:
in manger-bed, in swaddling clothes the child who all the earth upholds.
6 How glad we’ll be to find it so! Then with the shepherds let us go
to see what God for us has done in sending us his own dear Son.
7 Look, look, dear friends, look over there! What lies within that manger bare?
Who is that lovely little one? The baby Jesus, God’s dear Son.
8 Welcome to earth, O noble Guest, through whom this sinful world is blest!
You turned not from our needs away! How can our thanks such love repay?
9 O Lord, you have created all! How did you come to be so small,
to sweetly sleep in manger-bed where lowing cattle lately fed?
10 Were earth a thousand times as fair and set with gold and jewels rare,
still such a cradle would not do to rock a prince so great as you.
11 For velvets soft and silken stuff you have but hay and straw so rough
on which as king so rich and great to be enthroned in humble state.
12 O dearest Jesus, holy child, prepare a bed, soft, undefiled,
a holy shrine, within my heart, that you and I need never part.
13 My heart for very joy now leaps; my voice no longer silence keeps;
I too must join the angel-throng to sing with joy his cradle-song:
14 “Glory to God in highest heav’n, who unto us his Son has giv’n.”
With angels sing in pious mirth: a glad new year to all the earth!
Text: Martin Luther, 1483-1546; tr. Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978
© 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship, admin. Augsburg Fortress
Duplication in any form prohibited without permission or valid license from copyright administrator.
