"From Heaven Above to Earth I Come" - Sunday School Children's Christmas Program

I need you to use your imagination. Imagine that it’s Christmas Eve. The service at church is over. The pastor’s family is gathered in the living room. Father has written a new Christmas song for his wife and children. He sings it softly.

1             “From heav’n above to earth I come
To bear good news to ev’ry home;
Glad tidings of great joy I bring,
Whereof I now will say and sing:

The children recognize the melody. It was part of a singing game that they knew. A young man would sing “Good news from far above I bring/Glad tidings for you all I sing./I bring so much you’d like to know/Much more than I shall tell you, though.” Then the young man would offer a riddle to one of the girls. If she could not solve the ruddle, she had to surrender the wreath that she had on her head.

But this night, the father had much more in mind than a silly singing game. He wished for his family to use the familiar tune to sing about the most precious event ever. He would write thirteen stanzas to proclaim the message: Eight to be sung on Christmas Eve and six on Christmas Day.

The second stanza of the hymn gets to the heart of the matter. Sing it with me:

2             “To you this night is born a child
Of Mary, chosen virgin mild;
This little child of lowly birth
Shall be the joy of all the earth.

The father knows the deep significance of this birth. He knows it for himself. He knows it for His family. He knows it for the church.

He knows that of himself, life would be quite joyless because of what, by nature, went through his mouth, because of things he thought, because of things he did. They were wrong. They were marred by sin. Some were hurtful. Some were truly evil. All were contaminated by sin’s damnable fault.

And, he knows that the same is true for his family as well. He has watched them. He has listened to them. He remembers the time that their joy was taken away, the times they stole someone else’s joy, the times where joy was tainted and spoiled. But tonight, the joy is restored. Sing the next verse with me.

3             “This is the Christ, our God Most High,
Who hears your sad and bitter cry;
He will Himself your Savior be
From all your sins to set you free.

The truth that the father wants to share with his family is that this entire plan is not a mere Divine after-thought, something God drummed on a whim. This is God’s plan. It’s been God’s promise for a very, very long time. Sing verse four with me.

4             “He will on you the gifts bestow
Prepared by God for all below,
That in His kingdom, bright and fair,
You may with us His glory share.

“Be comforted, my dear ones,” the father says. “No matter how joyless, no matter how distressing, no matter how empty the moments may seem, God has not forgotten you. He is faithful. He keeps His promises. Just listen to the words of the angels in the next verse we sing:

5             “These are the signs that you shall mark:
The swaddling clothes and manger dark.
There you will find the infant laid
By whom the heav’ns and earth were made.”

Then, the father, Pastor Martin Luther, encourages his family to respond with the shepherds of long ago. Perhaps the pastor, as a young boy, also spent time in the open fields, wondering what he might have done had he been present that Holy Night so long ago. He could understand the shepherd’s unworthiness, as well as their amazement and surprise. He could understand their desire to confirm, to see for themselves what had been told them concerning the Child. Sing verse six with me.

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.

What that family, along with the shepherds, and with the whole Church on earth and in heaven, what they all saw was none other than the Son of God, laid in a manger, wrapped in strips of cloth. The Son of God, born of Mary, laying in a animal’s feed box. The Son of Man born to free the world by dying in our place. The Son of God, born to love us infinitely and without qualification.

This morning, our prayer is that you again hear this narrative and that it fills you with joy and wonder. So, just as Martin Luther gathered his family to hear of the birth of Christ, we gather this morning to hear the same. Let’s sing the last verse as the children prepare to share the Good News of Jesus with us.

7             Come here, my friends, lift up your eyes,
And see what in the manger lies.
Who is this child, so young and fair?
It is the Christ Child lying there.

 (The hymn, "From Heaven Above to Earth I Come" as found in Lutheran Service Book, #358. Originally written by Martin Luther in either 1534 or 1535, both text and tune are now in the public domain.)