Chris Tomlin Releases The Manger To The Cross Video
The song, from his Christmas album "Good News Of Great Joy (Christmas Songs Of Worship)," traces the road from the manger to the cross.
The official lyric video for "The Manger To The Cross," by Chris Tomlin, is now available to watch. The song is part of "Good News Of Great Joy (Christmas Songs Of Worship)," his album of Christmas worship songs.
The lyrics open with a still scene: a child sleeping under the star, angels watching the quiet sky, and a promise that God holds. Then the shepherds come in, kneeling like the first believers, and the magi, who leave gifts of great value.
And then comes the line that carries the rest: "This child shall be the world's Redeemer, from the manger to the cross." The child on the Christmas card is the Redeemer, and the road announced there does not end at the manger. It ends at a piece of wood.
«The manger opens the story; the cross closes it.»
From the manger to the cross, without skipping the ending
This song does not stay in the stable scene: it names the outcome almost from the start. It's an unusual bet for December, telling the birth while knowing how the story ends.
And that is how Scripture presents Jesus. The manger opens the story; the cross closes it. The child who is born is the same one who will give his life, and a Christmas that stays in the photo of the stable tells only half the story.
The sign that points further
When the angels tell the shepherds, the sign they give is humble: "And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger" (Luke 2:12, ESV). A newborn in an animal feeding trough. That is where it all begins, and whoever kneels before that sign believes something they do not yet see.
The first to find out were not the religious experts, but men working the night shift with the sheep (see Luke 2:8). Ordinary people, with dirty hands, who ran to see.
Paul tells the same descent in Philippians 2. The one who was in the form of God took the form of a servant and did not stop halfway: "And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:8, ESV).
Birth, sinless life, death in the place of others, resurrection. That is the path Tomlin's title announces, and it is also the center of the Christian faith.
A faith that survives January
The excitement of December is good, and it is also short. It goes away when the tree comes down and routine returns. If faith rests only on that excitement, any January will take it apart.
The song proposes looking at the whole story and worshiping for what God did, not for what we feel on one December night. That worship rests on facts: God became a child, lived without sin, died on the cross in our place and rose again.
Here is one concrete step for this week. Open Luke 2, read the whole scene, and then keep going in Philippians 2 all the way to the cross. Play the video with those two passages next to you and ask yourself which part of the story you still need to look at. What would change in your December if Christmas lasted for you all the way to the cross?
