Heidel Holiday Greetings 2023

I sit here at 9:49 p.m., Christmas Eve, hurrying to set down a few clever thoughts. You’ll be the judge . . .

Starting off with a bit of Holiday Whimsy from the Upper Chesapeake Old Bay Region, I wish you and yours a Merry Crabsmas . . . 

Now onto less whimsical things. Alice is happy that this year’s Clan Heidel Christmas Card is a triple feature: a wedding and new daughter in law, a Heidel mob-shot with all present, and a new grandbaby whose December arrival was early enough to permit a pre-December 25 mailing (so cooperative at such an early age). 2023 moments of excitement included the aforementioned June wedding of son #3, Gifford, to lovely Hayley. Making this even more exciting was Alice’s being hospitalized nine days before the wedding with an intestinal obstruction that was surgically remedied. Not to be upstaged, and only because I missed her terribly, I was hospitalized 5 days before the wedding with a “complex UTI.” We were on the same floor, different wings, and sampled many of the same antibiotics. Turns out, Alice was discharged the day I was admitted. We high-fived in passing in the patient express elevator.

In God’s kind providence, as you can see, we both made it to the wedding (as well as the day-before rehearsal events). We enjoyed having back stateside the Swedes, Emily, Jonathan, Ben, Theo, Joachim, and Nora, (who we met, cuddled, and hugged in person for the first time). We said farewell to our first wheelchair adapted van (so long old Paint) and welcomed a newer steed with accessible saddle and stirrups. Lovely, heroic Alice continues to care for me cheerfully, unwaveringly, a la wedding vow small print. Like Mary Bailey, “Heroically self-denying preserver of (our) home and servant of its people.”

As you can see, despite a midyear health speed bump, there is much for which we are very grateful.

At the same time, the times are extensively unsettled. Civilly. Economically. Socially. Racially. Politically. Spiritually. Domestically. Internationally. Globally. (Pick your adverb – any, some or all).

And yet, the Advent season ought to remind us that Christ, the eternally preexistent and transcendent second member of the Trinity, as determined from eternity past, condescended to enter history, born of a woman, yet without sin. Fully God. Fully man. To live a holy life in our stead. To take our sin upon himself and die in our place. To rise from the dead, defeating the spirit of the age(s), Satan, and death. And to restore our sonship with God the Father, our Abba. (Try wrapping that gift.)

Drawing  from Charles Haddon Spurgeon (M&E 12/23):

Even in the most perilous times, He does not abdicate His throne. Neither when the sun goes down, nor through the long wintry nights when we fear being the prey of evil. His eyes watch us as the stars, and His arm surround us as the zodiac belts the sky. The dews of kindly sleep and all the influences of the moon are in His hand, and the alarms and solemnities of night are equally with Him. This should be very sweet to us when watching through the midnight hours or tossing to and fro in anguish. There are precious fruits put forth by the moon as well as by the sun: may the Lord make us to be favored partakers in them.

The night of affliction is as much under the arrangement and control of the Lord of Love as the bright summer days when all is bliss. Jesus is in the tempest. His love wraps the night about itself as a mantle, but to the eye of faith the sable robe is scarce a disguise. From the first watch of the night even unto the break of day the eternal Watcher observes His saints and overrules the shades and dews of midnight for His people’s highest good. We believe in no rival deities of good and evil contending for the mastery, but we hear His voice saying, “I create light and I create darkness; I, the Lord, do all these things.” Gloomy seasons of religious indifference and social sin are not exempted from the divine purpose. When the altars of truth are defiled, and the ways of God forsaken, the Lord’s servants weep with bitter sorrow, but they may not despair, for (even) the darkest eras are governed by the Lord and shall come to their end at His bidding. What may seem defeat to us may be victory to Him.

“Though enwrapt in gloomy night,
We perceive no ray of light;
Since the Lord himself is here,
‘Tis not meet that we should fear.”

Drawing  from Linus (A Charlie Brown Christmas):

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Luke 2: 8-14

God’s goodness crowns the year, Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.