Will Christmas Come This Year?: Poems, Hymns, and Other Musings for Advent and Christmas

By Bob Chambers

Will Christmas Come This Year? is an attempt to apply the biblical representation of incarnation and other biblical passages to the situation of our world. Compiled from writings produced annually over thirty-six years, the writings often deal with the context of the world situation in which they were created. Sometimes critical of the way contemporary Christians practice the Christmas season, the writings always end in encouragement to let the coming of Christ lead to victorious living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664250031

Bob Chambers

A former public school choir teacher, fulltime Southern Baptist music minister, and professor of music at a Bible college, Chambers holds two degrees from Texas Christian University and the Doctor of Musical Arts in Church Music degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. At age twenty-five, he began a two-year tenure as Instructor of Elementary Music Education at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Twenty-five years later he returned to college teaching at Johnson University Tennessee, retiring as Professor of Music in 2017. A lifelong Southern Baptist, he also served in Disciples of Christ, United Methodist, and Presbyterian churches. As an ordained minister, he served local churches in Kentucky, Virginia, Texas, and Tennessee. He served as an associational leader for Southern Baptists in Kentucky and Texas and served with interdenominational groups in Texas and Tennessee. His involvement with local food ministries provided first-hand experience with people of varying socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. Chambers has an article and numerous reviews published in The Choral Journal and has published a book on choral conducting. He also has had articles published in various media of the universities he served. A composer since age eighteen, he began writing hymns around 1985, often composing musical settings to go with the texts. Many of his hymns and choral settings were produced for specific use in the churches he served.

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Copyright © 2022 Bob Chambers.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-5002-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5001-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5003-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021923383

WestBow Press rev. date:01/13/2022

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Isaiah 9:6

As Israel of Long Ago

A Christmas Conversation

The Christmas Songs

A Christmas Haiku

An Advent Blessing

Peace and a Sword

If Jesus Came to Us Today

Lord Jesus Christ, We Would Sing

That First Word

What Does It Mean?

Lord, as We Celebrate

What Kind of King Is This?

The Songs the Christmas Angels Sang

The White Christmas of Christ

A King Left His Throne

To Anxious Hearts in Troubled Times

Be Not Afraid

Will Christmas Come This Year?

The Word Has Come—Life, Light, and Love

The Songs We Hear at Christmastime

When God Spoke His Word

What Are You Looking for This Christmas?

Christmas Comes—Christ Must Come

We Want You to Hear Our Story

Will Someone Come?

Christmas Musings

Christmas Travelers

Nativity Scene

God Rest You, Harried Citizens

Which Christ This Christmas?

Christ Has Come! Christ Is Coming!

The Christmas Wish List

Heaven’s Yes!

God Incarnate!

I Wonder

Scriptural References Index

Metrical Index

Metrical Index of Tunes

Index of Composers and Sources

Alphabetical Index of First Lines and Titles

FOREWORD

This project has been undertaken at the urging of my daughter and my wife. It was always my intention to do this, but just later. The this is a compilation of poems, hymns, and musings on Advent and Christmas that I have written each year since 1985 and were included with our family Christmas card.

I’m not really sure how I started writing poems or hymns or whatever my thoughts produced. I have no particular training for writing poetry, although I did attend a Hymn Society hymn writers’ workshop with Jaroslav Vajda and Carl Schalk in 1987. I have enjoyed reading poems and have a few books of poetry, but never really studied the art of poetry. I have sung hymns since at least the age of four and have studied hymns intensely since my days in T. W. Hunt’s hymnology class at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. What I do know is that sometime in 1984 or 1985 rhyming verses, stanzas, and entire poems begin appearing in my devotional notebooks. It was only as the Advent/Christmas season approached in 1985 that I attempted to write something meaningful for that season. Once I started, I have managed to produce at least one text for this important Christian season each year.

I must admit that I am not certain that the texts included here are exactly the ones I sent out for the year they will be found representing. I thought I had carefully kept at least one copy of every Christmas letter we sent out over the years but could find no specific poems for 1992–1994. There is uncertainty about the dates for the hymns for 2003 and 2004 also. The poems you find with those dates assigned were in the notebooks for those years, but I am uncertain if they were even the ones that were sent out in any year. I did find them and decided to include them to fill years that otherwise would have been left void.

Christmas has always fascinated me. As a child it was all about the presents. In those days, my parents gave us gifts only twice a year—Christmas and our birthday. Christmas was the best because we received a gift from each sibling, our parents, and, of course, Santa Claus. Even after my conversion at age eleven, Christmas meant little more to me than giving and receiving gifts. It was only after Christmas of my sophomore year of high school when my parents gave me a nice King James Version Bible that I began to consider Christmas at a somewhat deeper level. The true meaning of Christmas only began to break into my consciousness after we had our first child. That precious gift from God made me realize what a genuinely great sacrifice God the Father made in sending his only son for