A Child is Born this Holy Night

Notes from Tom

I wanted this song to capture the mystery of the Incarnation in a simple, upbeat and modern way. Emmanuel means "God with us," and that alone should stop us in our tracks. But Christmas takes this mystery even further. The God who made the heavens and the earth comes into our world, not as a full-grown, powerful king, but as a helpless baby. He comes to be "with us" in the fullest possible way.

And he had to. To redeem us, Jesus had to become one of us, fully. He had to live under the law, fulfill it perfectly in our place, and finally die the death we deserved. He did not come merely to display his power. He came to share our frailty, yet be completely without sin, so he could save us from our sin. To do all this, he inserted himself into the human story itself.

That's why the line "The Bread of Life needs daily bread" sits at the heart of the song. The One who later says, "I am the Bread of Life" (John 6:35) comes among us needing to be fed. The One who teaches us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11) first receives that daily bread himself.

That is the wonder I wanted the song to carry. The Lord of all, lying in a manger. God himself, with us.

One last feature in this song is that each Refrain has a different 3rd line, meant to reinforce the message of the preceding verse.