What Child is This?

what world is this
where beasts and evil roam
where moth corrupt
and we walk alone
through crowds gone mad
as vagrants scorned
where drought and dread and dust doth blow
and it just doesn’t feel… like home

we press on through the wretchedness
across the valley of the shadow of death and its
all we can manage
to slosh through the sickness
and crawl through calamity
we are all witness to the fall
what humanity is this
that the sky would forsake with such (fury in) hues of hot gold
these bodies baking and burning
shaking and swerving
as we make this journey in shoes with lost soles
behold

what oasis is this
where we can kneel and taste
of water so pure
and partake of bread
that we will never hunger
and find comfort in our salvation made sure

what truth is this
that would come forth to relieve us
amidst all that would deceive us
what warrior is this
that came through the gallows
victorious
against all that would defeat us

what light is this
so bright and glorious
what commandment is this?
love God and my neighbor
but also my enemies that curse me
what medicine is this
that purges me of my own pestilence
that nourishes me in my negligence
that encourages me in adversity
and emerges in emergency
and furnishes me with breath in my breathlessness
whose death is my deathlessness
and whose rise is my righteousness
what child, what child, what child is this

in a world whose heart would harden us
where we would become lost
in the middle and the margins of
what savior is this
so sweet and marvelous
who would believe from the start and
agree to embark for us
who would grieve at how hard it was
but still kneel and (soak) the scars for us
whose pleading would pardon us
whose bleeding in the garden would
be the healing of every broken part of us

hail, hail for the Word made flesh
whose sentence cemented us in the story
and whose paragraphs
would be the parallax that let heaven’s glory merge with our quest
for the verve in our chest
for eternity’s best
they impaled with nails
and pierced with spears
for the break in the veil
we cheer Him with tears
we’re certainly blessed
for no matter what the world thinks might be king
this, THIS is Christ the King
whom shepherds guard and angels sing
praise be to the babe
the son of Mary
the son of God
that sacred fateful morn
joy, joy for Christ was born
and we are saved