Christmas Lullaby

See the baby in the manger,
Our salvation's great exchanger,
Now an exile, now a stranger—
O God and man!
Forgive our each transgression,
Keep us from sin's regression,
Make us thy true possession.
Oh come, oh come and set us free,
O dying babe!
And when the grave shall claim us,
In heaven's rolls rename us
As a living child of thee.
Sleep, baby, sleep.

Christ lag in Todesbanden

Christ lay within death's prison,
For our offences given,
But now our Lord is risen
And doth our souls enliven;
Let us therefore joyful be,
Praise God and to him thankful be:
And raise our Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!

Flow forth, my tongue, in song

Flow forth, my tongue, in song,
With gracious words and sweet;
A well of strife thou wast for long,
To bitterness wast fleet,
But now thy God thy streams amends
And healing to thy fountains sends.

Psalm 51

Suppose there's a Christian who struggles with sin,
And despite all his efforts, he can't seem to win,
But it's not that he lives with the guilt and the shame—
He knows that he's purposely throwing the game.

Maggie with the Roses in her Hair

There's a hush of expectation
From the silent, standing throng,
Then a burst of jubilation
As the band begins a song,
Ends their breathless supplication—
We behold the maiden fair:
'Tis Maggie with the roses in her hair.

Ascension Day

See the Conqueror mounts in triumph, see the King in royal state,

Riding on the clouds His chariot,
 to His heavenly Palace-gate;
Hark, the quires of angel voices
 joyful Halleluias! sing,

And the portals high are lifted, to receive their heavenly King.

A Plea

Ye who fear Mount Sinai's thunder,
Ye who fear its sulfur smoke,
Ye who would be rent asunder
By the very law you broke:
Come and feel the Saviour's breezes;
From the depths of hell he seizes
And shall never let thee choke.

Godly Sorrow arising from the Sufferings of Christ

Alas! and did my Saviour bleed!
And did my Sov'reign die?
Would he devote that sacred Head
For such a Worm as I?

Come, ye faithful, raise the strain!

Come, ye, faithful, raise the strain
Of triumphant gladness!
God hath brought His Israel
Into joy from sadness:
Loos'd from Phar'oh's bitter yoke
Jacob's sons and daughters;
Led them with unmoisten'd foot
Through the Red Sea waters.

The Covenant of Redemption

The story of salvation does not start on a warm summer day in the ‘90s, when, at the age of 6 or 8, I was on a car trip and the thought occurred to me that if we crashed and I died, I would go to hell. It does not begin on a spring morning in the A.D. 30s, when a man who was God rose from the dead, nor a few days before that when he was killed. It does not commence between 5 B.C. and A.D. 1, when the God-man was birthed by a virgin. It did not start several thousand years before that when God gave a formal system of sacrifices to a prince-turned-shepherd named Moses, nor before that when He saved the few righteous men on earth by water, nor even before that when the first man sacrificed an animal as atonement for his sin. It does not even start when that man fell from perfection into depravity. The story of salvation begins before the world was created, before time was started; there is no specific day, days not then having been formed. God made a covenant within Himself, between the members of His Trinity.