Christ's birth culminates in His death and resurrection. Even the very stones of creation praise God for such redemptive love. The text was written by Richard Wilbur (b. 1921) in 1958 for the annual Christmas concert at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. (I had the joy and privilege of serving as pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Middletown, Connecticut from 1985-2000 and was on the campus of Wesleyan University on numerous occasions.) The text was first published in Advice to a Prophet and Other Poems in 1961 under the title "A Christmas Hymn." In 1987, Richard Wilbur was named second Poet Laureate of the United States, following Robert Penn Warren. "A Stable Lamp Is Lighted" appeared in Hymnal Supplement 98 paired with the tune ANDUJAR, a tune composed by David Hurd (b. 1950). The tune was named after Lily Andujar Rogers, a Fellow at the American Guild of Organists and choirmaster of the boys' choir in which David Hurd sang at St. Gabriel's Church, Hollis, Long Island.
Whose glow shall wake the sky;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And ev'ry stone shall cry.
And ev'ry stone shall cry,
And straw like gold shall shine;
A barn shall harbor heaven,
A stall become a shrine.
2. This child through David's city
Shall ride in triumph by;
The palm shall strew its branches,
And ev'ry stone shall cry.
And ev'ry stone shall cry.
Though heavy, dull, and dumb,
And lie within the roadway
To pave His kingdom come.
3. Yet He shall be forsaken,
And yielded up to die;
The sky shall groan and darken,
And ev'ry stone shall cry.
And ev'ry stone shall cry,
For stony hearts of men:
God's blood upon the spearhead,
God's love refused again.
4. But now, as at the ending,
The low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And ev'ry stone shall cry.
And ev'ry stone shall cry,
In praises of the Child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.
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