I’m so very thankful to be putting this brief holiday post together from my new office in my New Hampshire home. We’re going to have a white Christmas this year, and I am enjoying the last flakes falling on a Christmas Eve morning snow. And although I still have some preparations for this evening’s service before me, a trip to a commercial district on the seacoast is in my immediate future. Interestingly, I’ll be a stone’s throw from the tomb of George Whitefield, who, adapting his friend Charles Wesley’s hymn, gave us this popular Christmas song:

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King:
peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
join the triumph of the skies;
with th’ angelic hosts proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

Christ, by highest heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord,
late in time behold him come,
offspring of the Virgin’s womb:
veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
hail th’ incarnate Deity,
pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus, our Immanuel. [Refrain]

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King”

Merry Christmas from Casting Across