As the old carol proclaims:
Heaven and earth in little space; res miranda.
Wondrous indeed, but not an end in itself; as another carol says, the end of it was
to save us all from Satan’s power, when we had gone astray
and finally, as the famous hymn declares,
God and sinners, reconciled.
A reason once for all achieved, and ever in season.
So, on this day, if you remember Bethlehem,
remember too, as Angelus Silesius tells us,
that there is only one sense now in which we may use the present tense regarding the
birth of Christ, and it is an all-important one:
Und waere Christus tausendmal in Bethlehem geboren, und nicht in dir,
du bliebest doch in alle Ewigkeit verloren.
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE CALVINIST INTERNATIONAL
