The Eighteenth Day of Advent
December 18, 2019
On the third Sunday in Advent, I was confined to home, unable to make my way to the manger. In every Advent season, I am strengthened in finding my place around the manger of the Christ Child. I find myself there because being near the manger moves me to contemplate the significance of Emmanuel, God-with-us. Being near the manger in spirit is holy ground, sacred space that stirs me to deeper faith. The hymn text writer Jaroslav Vajda also placed himself at the manger, searching for its significance in his life. In drawing close in spirit to the manger, he penned the text of the stirring hymn, Where Shepherds Lately Knelt.
Jaroslav Vajda penned the hymn text in 1986, seeking to place himself in spirit at the humble manger bed and there, review the implications of such a visit for himself and for all human beings. He believed that visiting the manger in order to ponder the significance of Immanuel,”God-with-us” in the flesh.
Being homebound after a kidney transplant, I missed my church’s service of Lessons and Carols. That service is always a time of deep and sacred worship for me, and I very much regretted missing it this year. In missing the service, I also missed the choir’s singing of Where Shepherds Lately Knelt, a hymn that has in the past moved me to tears. I invite you to contemplate the following text and to listen to the Anderson University Men’s Choir singing the hymn.
Where Shepherds Lately Knelt
Where shepherds lately knelt and kept the angel’s word,
I come in half-belief, a pilgrim strangely stirred:
but there is room and welcome there for me,
but there is room and welcome there for me.
In that unlikely place I find Him as they said:
sweet newborn Babe, how frail! and in a manger bed:
a still small Voice to cry one day for me,
a still small Voice to cry one day for me.
How should I not have known Isaiah would be there,
his prophecies fulfilled? Â With pounding heart, I stare:
a Child, a Son, the Prince of Peace — for me,
a Child, a Son, the Prince of Peace — for me.
Can I, will I forget how Love was born and burned
its way into my heart — unasked, unforced, unearned,
to die, to live, and not alone for me,
to die, to live, and not alone for me?
This beautiful hymn places me at the manger, near the Christ Child. And in that place —in the presence of God — I begin to understand who I am and what I feel about my faith. 
I contemplate the shepherds who drew near to the Child following the light of a strange star. I imagine that whatever faith they had, no matter how small, brought them to their knees. Pilgrims who lived on the land, they found their way to the manger and, in adoration, knelt before this Child, in this manger, on this night.
I am but a pilgrim in half-belief on a journey led by a fragile faith. Yet, something within me compels me to keep returning to the manger, again and again. And I find myself in true worship, strangely stirred, in adoration of the Christ Child under the brilliance of Bethlehem’s star. The cry of my spirit as I look at Christ, the Savior, while standing before the manger is so perfectly described by this hymn:
I come in half-belief, a pilgrim strangely stirred;
But there is room and welcome there for me…
Can I, will I forget how Love was born,
and burned its way into my heart unasked, unforced, unearned,
to die, to live, and not alone for me…”
Near the manger this advent, I discover that, indeed, “there is room and welcome there for me.”
For the Advent stirring of my fragile faith . . .
For newborn Love, born beneath Bethlehem’s star, thanks be to God. Amen.
God of the Sparrow 🌱 By Kathy Manis Findley 