A baby waits in a dark, warm womb

Lulled by the sway of a donkey’s walk

Down a road in the night toward Bethlehem

A young man waits in a concrete cell

For the years of the curse of his crime to pass

What is left of Christmas now?

And what will be left of Christmas then?

A young girl waits by a lighted tree

Till her sleep can skip past the hours till dawn

When she will awake to her Christmas dreams

An old man waits for the phone to ring

And an earnest voice might offer a hint

Of a Christmas past, when his son was young

And a shiny train roared round the tree

A mother waits for the oven’s buzz

For the cry of her child, for the call of her mate

For the time to write, for a chance to think

Of the deeper things that the season means

The officer waits in her darkened car

On the side of a road on a freezing night

For the squeal of tires, for a drunken weave

For the family fight, for the noise too loud

For her shift to end in peace tonight

The student waits in the airport lounge

Brooding against her travel bags

Till the blizzard ends and the runway’s clear

Hoping to make it home in time

The trucker waits at the counter’s edge

For a cup of warmth to heat the night

For the sight of a face to dull the pain

Of family lost, of lovers left

A truck stop Christmas must suffice

A soldier waits in the Balkan night

Ears alert for the slightest sound

Eyes strained into the fearsome dark

At home there’s a chill in his young wife’s heart

He feels her pangs for him this night

A father waits in a cobwebbed barn

By flickering light of a lamp of oil

Holding the hand of his struggling wife

As their precious child is born to the world

And we now wait in a darkened church

Ready to have our hopes fulfilled

Ready to kindle that holy light

Ready to find the Christ within

Each of us who has come tonight