Merry Christmas! I pray that this will be a sweet day of rest and remembrance for you—a day in which you will be able to rest from your normal labors to remember our Savior’s birth. As you do so, perhaps you will be blessed by this old prayer drawn from The Valley of Vision. It will call you to marvel at the wonder of God made man, of deity meeting humanity.
What shall I render to thee for the gift of gifts,
thine own dear Son, begotten, not created,
my Redeemer, proxy, surety, substitute,
his self-emptying incomprehensible,
his infinity of love beyond the heart’s grasp.
Herein is wonder of wonders:
he came below to raise me above,
was born like me that I might become like him.
Herein is love;
when I cannot rise to him he draws near on
wings of grace,
to raise me to himself.
Herein is power;
when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart
he united them in indissoluble unity,
the uncreated and the created.
Herein is wisdom;
when I was undone, with no will to return to him,
and no intellect to devise recovery,
he came, God-incarnate, to save me
to the
