Luke 15:11-32
II Corinthians 12:1-10
Andre Thomas, Sr.
January 22, 2017

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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John 1:29-42
David A. Davis
January 15, 2017

“Rabbi, where are you staying?” Where are you staying? It’s an odd question right there at the start. “Where are you staying?” Jesus notices the two disciples of John are following him. Jesus speaks first. “What are you looking for?” One doesn’t have to be a theologian or a literary critic to pretty quickly conclude that Jesus wasn’t just asking “What’s up?” or “How’s it going” or “Where are you headed? or “What are you doing?” A careful reader discovers these are the first words spoken by Jesus on John’s gospel stage. The first lines given to Jesus in John’s passion play. Jesus’ first, deep, searching, meaningful question. “What are you looking for?”

“We are looking for the Messiah, the one of whom the prophets foretold… We are looking for the Lamb of God, the one to whom John testified… We are looking for the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit… We are looking for the holy one, full of grace and full of truth.” No, according to John they said “Rabbi, where are you staying.” It sounds more like alums who arrive at a reunion and want to find the best place to hang out: “So where are you staying?” Or friends who run in to each other over the summer on the boardwalk: “Where are you staying?” Or college students comparing notes after the room lottery: “How did you do?” Or high school youth rushing to read the call sheet for the next play: “Did you get a part?” Or young kids getting together during Christmas break: “What did you get?” Or someone arriving home after a long day at school, or practice, or work, and asking to anyone within ear shot: “So what’s for dinner?” One of our kids growing up had a friend who would arrive at our house often unannounced, walk right in, and within a few minutes was opening the fridge or looking for snacks in the pantry. It was a nonverbal question often repeated with action in our kitchen over the years: “Have anything to eat?”

“When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi, where are you staying?’” It is as if they want to check out his digs. Or see who hangs out at his place. Or find out if his house was clean. Or whether he was just renting a room. Or whether he had any place to lay his head. Or find out his economic status. Or ask after his family. Something about the expression must be lost in translation here. Maybe it is something cultural about hospitality. Maybe it is more of an expression or an idiom. Because there is more going on here than domestic exploration when Jesus responds with “Come and see.” And as the gospel writer tells it, “They came and saw where he was staying.”

You will remember that the Gospel of John is so full of details that sort of leap off the page. Just here in the text for this morning John provides a language lesson: Rabbi, which translated means Teacher; Messiah, which is translated Anointed; Cephas, which is translated Peter. And the narrator mentions out of nowhere that it was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

John always seem to pair detail with memorable image, language, and symbolism. At the wedding in Cana when Jesus turned water into wine, the Gospel describes the jars in detail: six stone water jars each holding twenty to thirty gallons. But as for that miracle, that’s when Jesus said to his mother “My hour has not yet come” and John sums up the scene by describing it as the “first of his signs in Cana of Galilee” that revealed his glory. Details paired with symbol.

When Jesus healed the blind man on the Sabbath at Beth-zatha, the text describes the scene: in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is pool which has five porticoes in which many of the blind, lame, and paralyzed lay. One man was sick for 38 years. By the end of the scene after the man took up his mat and walked, Jesus said to those who were questioning him, “Very truly I tell you the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.” Details paired with deeper theological imagery.

All through John. That breakfast scene on the beach with the Risen Christ. When the disciples caught the fish they were only about a hundred yards from shore; there were 153 fish in the net and on the charcoal fire was some fish and some bread. And that’s when Jesus and Peter had that three times repeated interchange: do you love me, yes, Lord, you know I love you, feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. “When you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you are grow old, you will stretch our your hands and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go (Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God).” John’s gospel putting that kind of complexity together with 153 fish and a boat about 100 yards off shore.

Which is all to say that Jesus’ invitation for the two to “come and see” had to be about a whole lot more than where he was hanging his hat, or taking off his cloak, or putting up his feet, or resting his head, or hanging his shingle, or taking his meals. “They came and saw where he was staying.” Staying. That’s a loaded term in John, used three times here in these few verses. Teacher, where are you staying? Jesus said to them Come and See. They came and saw where he was staying and they remained (or “stayed” — same word in Greek). They stayed with him that day. The language lessons, the details of the time and day, all of it paired here with “staying.” The symbol, the deeper image, the theological fencepost from John is “It is in the staying.” “They came and saw where he was staying.”

Staying. John 6:56: Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them.” Abide. Same word as “stay.” John 15: Jesus said, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” Stay in me as I stay in you. And “if you keep my commandments, you will abide, you will stay in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and stay in his love.” The two came and saw where Jesus was abiding. It’s not a domestic inquiry. It has everything to do with Jesus and God and humankind and the most profound imagery, symbolism, theology we can muster.

It’s interesting that the Christmas memory verse from the Prologue to John, “the Word became flesh and lived among us,” lived among us, dwelt among us is a different word in Greek. After all the poetry and the beauty of that Prologue to John, Christmas in John, that word, that “lived-among-us” word in Greek pretty much doesn’t come back. Once Jesus gets going in John with ministry, once he calls the disciples, once he starts teaching and healing and loving, for John, in John, it’s all abiding, staying. That’s the word. It’s the word that shouts incarnation. It’s all incarnation. God with us. Christ with us. Christ for us. Yes, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and he stayed. They came and saw where he was staying. They came and saw him in the flesh. Hair, teeth, bones, eyes. They came and saw that he was staying. God was staying. The Messiah. Emmanuel. God with us. Staying. Abiding with us.

Christ the Lord came to live among us that night and he stayed. Which means he cried, he soiled his diaper, kept his mother up, rolled over, crawled, took first steps. He had growing pains and his voice changed and he worried his parents. He had friends. He had a favorite meal. He played games. He went to work. He had teachers and mentors and awkward family moments. He saw the sunrise and the sunset. He knew what it meant to be cold and hot and tired and disappointed and joyful and tempted and angry and scared. He laughed. He cried. His heart was broken. He grieved. He hurt. He bled. He died. He stayed the whole time. Messiah. Emmanuel. God with us. God for us. From birth to death. He stayed the whole time. “They came and saw where he was staying”.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and he stayed. And in the staying, in the abiding, Christ Jesus made what it means to be human holy. He made our ordinariness sacred. Yes, the most profound parts of being human, that we are created in God’s image and created to give God praise, that matters to him. And the most mundane parts of being human, loving and laughing and growing and learning and sharing and caring, it all matters to him. To abide in Christ, as Christ abides in us, it means that loving one another and loving your neighbor and forgiving as you have been forgiven and caring for the sick and comforting the grieving and welcoming the children and embracing the outcast, all of it is a sacred task. When you come to see that he stayed.

He stayed. Jesus came all the way down that holy night and he stayed. It is one more reminder, one more affirmation of God’s love. That God loves all of you. I don’t mean all (collective of you) which is indeed true. I mean God loves all (every part) of you. In his collection of sermons entitled Strength to Love, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tells of a woman that everyone called Mother Pollard. “Although poverty stricken and uneducated,” King describes her, “she was amazingly intelligent and possessed a deep understanding of the meaning of the [civil rights] movement.” One evening after Dr. King spoke at a large meeting in a church, Mother Pollard came up to him after the meeting at the front of the church. Sensing that something was wrong, that he wasn’t feeling strong. He tried to reassure her that he was fine and deflect her concerns. “You can’t fool me,” she said, “I know something is wrong.” Before Dr. King could respond, Mother Pollard looked into his eyes and said, “I told you we are with you all the way.” Then as King describes it, “Her face became radiant and she said in words of quiet certainty, ‘But even if we aren’t with you, God’s gonna take care of you.’” Dr. King finishes that sermon by telling how Mother Pollard’s eloquent simple words came back to him again and again to give light and peace and guidance. “God’s gonna take care of you.”

Mother Pollard must have known what the Gospel of John wants you know. Jesus stayed. And that makes it all matter. All of it, all of this being human stuff, matters. Because in Christ Jesus, we know God so loved all of us.

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Luke 1:26-45
David A. Davis
December 18, 2016
Advent IV

I wonder if he asked anybody else. Gabriel, I mean. The angel Gabriel. I wonder if he asked others first. Maybe in the fifth month Gabriel was sent to some other town around Galilee and the person there said no. The Annunciation in Luke is so familiar, so etched within, so memorized: Gabriel, his announcement, and Mary’s yes. It’s almost like Mary had no choice. The angel, God’s favor, the coming Messiah, the Holy Spirit. But what if someone else, someone before, some other girl said no? Yes, it is true that a theological argument is made in some traditions for Mary’s singularly distinctive holiness. One unlike any other. But other voices would argue for her striking ordinariness; a run of the mill, pretty much like any other, young girl from “no-wheres-ville”. Mary was favored by God precisely because she was so “human”. If that’s the case, maybe someone, maybe a few said no to Gabriel. Yes, yes, I get it, why would God send an angel to someone who said no when God would have known before God sent the angel how the person was going to answer because God is God and God knows everything. I’m not intending to spark one of those never ending dormitory philosophical/theological arguments that some folks crave. No. I’m just suggesting you can’t really ponder Mary’s “yes” without considering how easy it is, how prevalent it is, how timeless it is, for humankind to say “no” when it comes to bearing God’s way.

Gabriel tells Mary that she is “favored” twice. He says it twice but doesn’t really offer an explanation or say why. “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Perhaps that means Mary is favored because the Lord is with her. But it sounds more like part of the greeting to me. “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” Gabriel doesn’t say why he just goes on with the news about conceiving and birthing and naming. It’s not like Mary had an inkling here. No reference to a nudge or intuition she may have had in her prayer time. Luke tells us Mary was perplexed, puzzled, confused. She was trying to figure out what this sort of greeting, what this “you are so favored Mary” greeting might be. The perplexity favors the Mary as just one of us thesis. As does her question “how can this be, since I am a virgin?” Though it is a “how” question, not a “why” question. Not why, why me.

It’s the “Here am I” that sets Mary apart. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary’s “yes”. Luke then fast forwards the story to Mary’s visit to see Elizabeth. The in utero leap of joy from John, it came just from Mary’s voice, from her greeting. With Mary’s voice and with John’s kick, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She shouts out with a loud cry. You remember her husband, Zechariah, he couldn’t talk at all when Elizabeth was pregnant. His voice was gone because he didn’t believe what the same Angel Gabriel had to say to him about Elizabeth getting pregnant and delivering John. “How will I know that this is so?” he asked Gabriel. The angel wasn’t all that pleased with him, his doubt, his hesitation, his lack of belief. Mary said, “How can this be?” and Gabriel didn’t give her a hard time. Maybe it was because too many had said “no” already. Regardless, don’t miss the stark contrast between her husband who can’t speak and Elizabeth’s shout.

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for you. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Blessed are you among women. Blessed is the fruit of your womb. Blessed is she who believed. All with a loud cry. A shout. A joy-filled shout.

Elizabeth’s shout clarifies what it is about Mary. Gabriel wasn’t very revealing on the “favored status” but Elizabeth shout makes it clear. The shout out is not because of any miraculous nature to the pregnancy. It’s not because she happens to be carrying the Savior at that very moment. It’s not even that she is the mother of the Lord as Elizabeth titles her. The shout out, the blessing comes from Elizabeth to Mary because Mary believed. Mary believed that “there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Mary believed what Gabriel told her. Mary believed what God said to her through the Angel Gabriel. Mary believed. “Blessed is she that believed.”

Not blessed is she who came all this way to see me. Not blessed is she the one whom God chose. Not blessed is she who is pregnant with child. Not blessed is she who is betrothed to Joseph. Not blessed is she who is so young and with child. Not blessed is she who has a lot of explaining to do. Not blessed is she who bears the Messiah of whom the prophets spoke. Not blessed is she who bears the child of whom the angels sing, for whom God’s people wait. Not blessed is she who is part of Isaiah’s sign, a virgin shall conceive and bear a child and his name shall be Emmanuel, God with us. No. No. Elizabeth’s shout? What sets Mary apart? Blessed is she that believed.

I am not Mary….and neither are you. Even if one takes the position that heralds Mary’s ordinariness, there is so little about her that resonates with us. A young Palestinian Jewish girl in antiquity from Nazareth who was visited by an angel and told she was about to be the dwelling place for Son of the Most High. Some, of course, can relate to the pregnancy and child birth and motherhood part…and men, especially male preachers should best just stay quiet and listen on that score. But after that, you and I don’t have a lot to go on when it comes to Mary. Mary the younger. The older Mary who searches for a lost son, and tells a grown son to make some wine, and tries to figure out her son’s unique definition of family, and walks along as her suffering son is forced to carry his cross, and watches in agony as her son dies, and hears another angel tell her and the others not to be afraid that Easter morning…the older Mary offers so much experience, so much more life to latch on to. But this Mary, the Mary of the Annunciation? It’s like she’s relegated to fine art and the best of pageants and the story told over and over and over again.

And yet, here’s the wonder of it all. What sets her apart in Luke, what Elizabeth calls out as extraordinary and sacred and holy in Mary, is what makes her so much like us; she believed. She believed that what the Lord said to her through the angel Gabriel would be fulfilled. She believed that God called her, that God could use her, that God would do a new thing in and through her. That she was to be the dwelling place for a child named Jesus. The Son of the Most High. The Messiah. The Son of the Most High. The Savior of the world whose kingdom would have no end. Mary believed all that the angel said would be fulfilled. Mary believed it and Mary said yes. Well, she said “Hear am I” but that meant yes.

In Jesus Christ God is at work to do a new thing. In the power of the Holy Spirit, God on high comes afresh to bring light to the world’s darkness, to bring peace amid turmoil, to help broken hearts to find joy again, to insure that love wins, and to never let death have the last word. The promise of Jesus Christ breaks forth like a radiant light as a follower of Jesus witnesses to, lives by, acts on, responds to, delivers the endless mercy and abundant grace of God in the ordinariness of life. That sounds like Advent to me. Christ coming into the world through you!

But saying “no” when it comes to bearing God’s way never gets old, does it? It’s just so darn easy, so prevalent, so timeless for humankind to say “no” when it comes to giving birth to God’s kingdom. So easy to conclude that God isn’t at work in the world these days. So common to conclude that since angels and voices and prophets are rare these days, God must be done with us, done with this. So much safer to assume if God isn’t calling you to bear a Savior like Mary, God must not be calling at all, or if God hasn’t blessed you with an idea that can save the world why bother to try at all, or if your piety and religiosity doesn’t make the chart let alone fly off the charts, why care at all. So much more prevalent to think it just doesn’t matter, or what difference does it make, or shrug it all off with a “who am I”. A “who am I” rather than “here am I”.

Believing that God is calling you, and inspiring you, and encouraging you, and making a way for you. Believing that God touches hearts and opens minds and transforms lives. Believing that God touches hearts and opens minds and transforms lives in and through you. Believing that God still yearns for righteousness and justice and peace in the world. Believing that God plants seeds of righteousness and justice and peace in the world in and through you. Believing that God still calls God people one at a time to lead and to risk and to witness and to change and to shout and to serve and to so live. Believing that God still is calling you. That’s blessed. Blessed. Blessed.

You and I bearing God’s way, birthing God’s kingdom, delivering God’s promised new thing. Mary’s not the only dwelling place. She’s not the only dwelling place for a child named Jesus.

Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come. It’s the Advent prayer.

Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come in and through me.

Here am I.

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Isaiah 11:1-10
David A. Davis
December 4, 2016
Advent II

It doesn’t get any more familiar than this. “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him.” Discerning wisdom. Strong counsel. Knowledge that drips with the fear of the Lord. Delight in the worship of God. “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear.” The poor judged with righteousness. Fairness shall abide with the meek. Evil and wickedness upon the earth will be brought to ruin by his word and by his breath. Word and Spirit. Righteousness and faithfulness will surround him. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them.” Cows and bears will graze in the same place. The young animals will curl up together. Even the lion will eat straw. The nursing child, the weaned child, will play with the most dangerous of snakes. “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

It’s the soundtrack of a lifetime of Christmas Eves. The words of the prophet Isaiah. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the people. A signpost for the people. The root, the branch that came forth from Jesse, shall be the landmark, the cairn, the banner, the lighthouse, the benchmark to the people. All the nations will seek him out and his dwelling; his dwelling place, his home, will be glorious. The holy mountain, Zion, where there is no hurting, no destruction. Glorious. Lions, cows, bears, wolves, lambs, leopards, kids, fatlings together. Glorious. Evil stomped out. Equity for the meek. Righteousness for the poor. Glorious. His kingdom, that budding branch of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord, his kingdom, his dwelling is glorious. Not just peaceable. It’s not just peaceable. It’s glorious.

The prophet reprises the kingdom song near the end of the Book of Isaiah. Isaiah 65. Like a composer who brings the tune back at the end of the work, it’s all familiar. “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth… no more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime… They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be… Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox but the serpent — its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”

By now Isaiah’s audience, Isaiah’s readers, ought to be humming along, closing their eyes, nodding their heads, and visualizing the kingdom. Glorious! Glorious!

Of course for Isaiah and the rest of the Hebrew prophets, it was never about an audience. Prophets don’t look for spectators. They don’t put out the call for religious onlookers. They are about creating, shaping, pruning, sending a kingdom people. God’s kingdom people.

Edward Hicks was the early 19th-century Quaker who created the famous painting of “The Peaceable Kingdom.” Many will remember the scene with all the animals there in the forefront painted with such bright colors and vivid features. A lamb at the feet of the lion. A child there in the midst. The painting was “posterized” in churches and homes long before the word “posterized” made it into the urban dictionary. There is a familiar Hick’s painting of Noah’s Ark as well. Edward Hicks actually painted over 60 different versions of the peaceable kingdom. He probably painted more than that but 61 exist today. One wonders if his persistence was about an artist trying to get it right or someone with a Quaker heart trying to decorate a lost world with as many visions of peace as he could.

One of the features in most (if not all) of the “peaceable kingdom” paintings is a contemporary scene to the left of the animals, sort of in the background, just beyond some body of water. Interpreters say it is most often a depiction of William Penn and associates making peace with a group of Native Americans. The Garden of Eden-like scene dominating the foreground of the painting with a depiction of a 19th-century example of peacemaking (at least peacemaking in the artist’s eyes) off to the left. A vision of the prophet’s promise casting a light on humanity’s world. The peacefulness of a new creation spilling into the world the artist sees around him. The eternal hope of a glorious kingdom giving perspective to the present reality.

Perhaps the artist’s rendering of a discussion of peace with Native Americans could serve as a kind of ironic reminder that humanity has never really learned the things that make for peace. As Jesus said when he wept over Jerusalem, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace.” (Luke 19:42) Nonetheless, Hick’s Quaker-influenced theological point should not be tossed away. It is a visual depiction of the prophet’s “already and not yet.” While waiting for that promised glorious kingdom to come, God’s kingdom people are called to point to, work for, shout out, and claim the reign of God now. That sounds like Advent to me. A vision of Christ’s promised kingdom casting a light on and transforming humanity’s world. The peacefulness of God’s new creation yet to come spilling into the world you and I see all around us. The eternal hope of Christ’s glorious kingdom giving perspective to the present reality.

Earlier this fall I was in Wyoming to officiate at a wedding for a church member. Cathy and I spent a morning driving up into the Grand Teton National Park. It wasn’t that long after we had passed through the gate that we came upon a park ranger standing smack in the middle of the road with one of those bright orange vests on. Facing us, he was rather energetically pointing to his left. I thought he was telling me to pull over but this was a narrow road in national park and there was no berm to the road at all. So I just stopped and rolled down my window. Before I could say a word, the ranger blurted out in a loud voice for all to hear, “You can’t miss this!”. And he tossed his arm like a referee signing first down. Cathy and I turned to look in that direction and there was a moose, just off the road, taking a bath in a beaver pond. The moose was completely unruffled by the rangers booming voice. They must have been friends. We sure would have missed it. “You can’t miss this!”

Sometimes the prophet’s message comes in sublime beauty, like Brahms German Requiem and his setting of Psalm 84, “How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place.” Other times the vision is communicated with the subtlety of brush strokes and interpretation, art history, and the proclamation of God’s people. Isaiah’s message, Isaiah’s kingdom song comes in the complexity of the Hebrew Bible and it is to be studied with the best tools of scholarship, history, theology, language. Bring it all, bring everything we can muster to shed light on God and the mystery of the already and the not yet and God’s plan of salvation for us and for all of creation. But every now and then, and especially right now and right then, God’s kingdom people have to stand smack in the middle the road and shout and point, “You can’t miss this!”

The poor bathed in righteousness. The meek showered with fairness. Evil and wickedness plundered. Righteousness. Faithfulness. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them… They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” You can’t miss this! This Advent season a cantata just won’t do. Just look around. You and I have to stand up, put on a vest and point. Point to the eternal hope of Christ’s glorious kingdom that gives perspective to the present reality.

Actually, we just can’t point. Because prophets aren’t interested in spectators who just sit and point. Prophets aren’t interested in Christians who sit in the pew and say the church should stay out of politics. Prophets aren’t interested in self-absorbed Pietists who have concluded that it’s really all about them and their punched ticket to eternity. Prophets call people to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with their God. Prophets inspire people to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Prophets tell of the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God who stood up in the temple and unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Prophets proclaim the Messiah and his glorious kingdom. Prophets are about pruning, shaping, sending, creating, empowering, inspiring, encouraging, calling a kingdom people. God’s kingdom people who are willing to point and shout and work and serve and love.

The world can’t afford to miss this vision of the glorious kingdom. Christ came from this kingdom. Christ inaugurated this kingdom. Christ fulfills this kingdom. Come, Lord Jesus! Quickly come. The glorious kingdom. His glorious dwelling place.

He comes from the glory. He comes from the glorious kingdom. He comes from the glory. He comes from the glorious kingdom. Sue Ellen Page taught that song to our youngest children at Nassau Presbyterian Church. The song was part of the Christmas Pageant for 573 years. More children than we could count. Children. youth, young adults. Adults now spread all over the world.

The Virgin Mary had a baby boy,
The Virgin Mary had a baby boy,
The Virgin Mary had a baby boy,
And they say that his name is Jesus.

He come from the Glory,
He come from the Glorious Kingdom,
He come from the Glory,
He come from the Glorious Kingdom.

Sue Ellen in June. She went on to glory just last Sunday night. Our children, your children, and mine. She didn’t just teach them to sing. She gathered them around and the way that only she could do, she pointed to the glorious kingdom and said with her life, “You can’t miss this!”

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.