“Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15)

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“When St. Paul calls Christ God’s ‘unspeakable Gift,” he is not toying with exaggerating superlatives, polishing his style with impressive phraseology. The blessing of the Savior’s Gospel was as inexplicable to him as it must be to us. The Apostle uses a term here which means: “one ‘cannot bring out’ or ‘express’ the blessing, the fullness, the glory, the riches, the value, of this divine gift. If St. Paul, acknowledged even by the Christless world as a master of logic, expression, and rhetoric, asserts that God’s Christmas gift to the world defies all description, where will we find words or pictures, poetry of painting, that can reproduce in full majesty the limitless love of our Lord Jesus?

No sacred oratorio, not even the unforgettable strains of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ and it s climax in the stirring ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ or the artistry of Bach’s ‘Christmas Oratorio,” can be classed with the angel chorus reechoing over Bethlehem; and even the angel voices could not sing the full glory of Christ.

All the hands of genius painting nativity scenes, the fifty-six madonnas of Raphael, or an art gallery graced with the masterpieces of the ages that have depicted the Christ-child can truly delineate the personal blessings of Bethlehem. No poetry, not even the sacred lines of our hymnals, the measured stateliness of any nativity ode, not even the ancient psalms of inspired prophecy, can fully express the height and depth of God’s love in Christ. The heart of Christmas remains unspeakable in its beauty, immeasurable in its power, unutterable in its glory.”

[Walter A. Maier (1893 – 1950). Called "Jeremiah of the 20th Century," Dr. Walter A. Maier was the preachingest preacher in the world during the 1940s, operating through twelve hundred radio stations in a number of different languages.]

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