by Zach Kincaid

Make me your Bethlehem,
humble and waiting
for Israel's prophet who sows the root of Jesse
to reap the very Son of God.
She means a house of bread and
from her table falls a trail of crumbs
that leads to a broken-last-supper king of the Jews.

If I should stand as a city on a hill,
make me your Bethlehem,
lowly and without pretense.
She has no Moses glows or Sinai camps,
yet the heavens drop into the earth (not the earth into itself)
as the cooing messiah brings God down to his footstool
and ushers in foolishness to shame the wise.

Make me your Bethlehem,
silent and ready
to host principalities and powers that flood the sky
She holds water that David longed to drink.
Yet when three of his strongest men retrieved it,
he poured it out before the Lord.

If I am to lend my life as a living sacrifice,
make me your Bethlehem,
absorbed in a myth rung true -
For to us a child is born in the city of David.
He is to be called Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.