Thirty-two Christmasses ago, I was a newly ordained and serving a year-long CPE residency at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Because Parkland was both the county hospital and a major trauma hospital associated with the UT Southwestern Medical School, everything bad came there by ambulance or helicopter. It was the closest I've been to a war zone. The contrast with parttime simultaneous service in a suburban parish was, at times, surreal.
While pulling a late night on-call as the only chaplain in the complex with death and destruction all around, in-between calls, I came across Abp. Johon Olof Wallin's Christmas hymn found at LBW #73: "All Hail to You, O Blessed Morn" (sung to the "Wie Schoen Leuchtet" tune). The third stanza moves me deeply to this day:
"He will, like us, shed bitter tears, will know our needs yet still our fears and send His Spirit's power. He will reveal His Father's will, our cup of woe with mercy fill to sweeten sorrow's hour....
Struggling, suff'ring, He, by dying dearly buying our salvation, opens wide the gates of heaven."