Time away and Christmas wishes

Dear Readers,
Thank you for visiting this blog.  I often wonder who you are, since this subject seems a bit esoteric.  I find it fascinating, but I do admit that when I start talking about it, people's eyes glaze over and their smiles go a little waxen.  And I only give it three sentences of explanation!  So thank you to those of you who are interested and take the time to read this.
I will be taking a break from posting until after the New Year, since my son is home from California and my daughter from college.  I also have started a new job with lots of commuting.  I think I have maybe another 20-30 posts to go, but I'm also lousy at estimating that kind of thing.

So allow me to use one of Charles Wesley's hymns to remind us all of the incredibleness of Christmas.  We praise God because God came to earth as a mere mortal.  "Our God contracted to a span," to a short human lifespan.  "He wrapped him in our clay," meaning God sent Jesus as an infant to live in our fragile human form.  Yet Jesus was and is the Godhead -- GOD, the amazing and immortal GOD, bigger and deeper and better than we can ever understand.  Jesus came as Immanuel, which means "God with us."

"Let earth and heaven combine,
Angels and men agree,
To praise in songs divine
The incarnate Deity,
Our God contracted to a span,
Incomprehensibly made man.

"He laid his glory by,
He wrapped him in our clay;
Unmarked by human eye,
The latent Godhead lay;
Infant of days he here became,
And bore the mild Immanuel's name."
(Wesley, Charles.  Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord - 1745, #5: 1 and 2, quoted in Manskar, Steven.  A Disciple's Journal: 2013: A Guide for Daily Prayer, Bible Reading, and Discipleship (Nashville, TN: Discipleship Resources, 2012), 9.)

A blessed Christmas to all those you like and love and especially to all those we dislike or even hate.  May you feel the presence of God with you.