"The Gift of Gifts" {A Christmas Prayer}

O Source of all good,
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 uncreate 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 uttermost,
               as man to die my death,
                           to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
                           to work out a perfect righteousness for me.
O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds, and enlarge my mind;
   let me hear good tidings of great joy,
        and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore,
        my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose,
        my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father;
   place me with ox, ass, camel, goat,
        to look with them upon my redeemer's face,
        and in him account myself delivered from sin;
   let me with Simeon clasp the new-born child to my heart,
        embrace him with undying faith,
        exulting that he is mine and I am his.
In him thou hast given me so much that heaven can give no more.

       ~The Valley of Vision, p. 16

Blessed Christmas, dear Crumbles, to you and yours, from us here at Wits' End!