Goddity

The Nativity of our Lord—born an infant, laid in a manger. It’s an utterly strange story: The Creator of all things takes the flesh of and lives as a newborn human child. Christmas songs often take up this bizarre conception. Consider Charles Wesley’s verse, from his hymn “Let Earth and Heaven Combine”: “Our God contracted to a span, / Incomprehensibly made man.” Or Christina Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter”: “Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain; / Heaven and earth shall flee away / when He comes to reign; / In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed / The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.”