The First Star on A Tree

 

 

The first star on a tree

Was not the wise men’s star

Though to a stable that led

Those wise men from afar.

 

Neither was it

On the first Christmas tree

And stood at the summit

To cap its beauty.

 

No Christmas tree is complete

Without that star on the top,

Of a Christmas tree’s many stars

It holds the top spot.

 

 

No star shines as brightly

As that topmost star,

Just like that star in the heavens

That led wise men from afar.

 

But that’s not the first star

That was ever on a tree,

To truly view that star

One must revisit Mount Calvary.

 

Not that first Christmas

When heaven’s angels had sung

But that first Good Friday

When from a tree Jesus hung.

 

 

On that roughly hewn cross

Hung the brightest ever star:

The light of the world

Though disfigured and marred.

 

No longer does he hang

From that old rugged cross

But like the star o’er Bethlehem

He still beckons the lost.

  

Let there be light

Did not mean the moon or the sun

But the initial unveiling

Of Jesus, God’s Son…

 

That would light the world

Which in darkness was flung

When our fore parents

That grave sin had done.

 

 

This star always existed

Unlike the stars in the night

And still brings wise men to himself

Since he is the light.

 

The first star on a tree

If you’ve grasped what I mean

And not on the first Christmas tree

O'er a nativity scene.

 

As you gaze this Christmas time

On the Christmas tree,

Do not only recall Bethlehem

But remember Calvary.

 

 

 

For ‘twas the tree at Calvary

From which Jesus did hang

Very unlike the Bethlehem event

When heaven’s angels sang.

 

Jesus, the light of the world

The first star on a tree

Was crucified at Calvary

For you and for me.

 

Stewart Russell © December 13, 2020