Christmas Message from the Bishop
“Hark the herald angels sing!” Can you hear them? It might be a little hard these days over the strife of voices we hear everywhere, the loss of trust in the leaders of almost every institution, and incivility in our public and private conversations that erupts into violence. For many of us this has been a year of darkness rather than light.
But listen to these Christmas words that John wrote in his Gospel during a similar time of darkness, loss and strife:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God! He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made… In Him was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it!” (John 1:1-5)
What good news has Christmas for such a time as this? That God himself has come to be with us in the person of his one and only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord! In Christ, God himself became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen for ourselves the glory of his love and his light that the darkness around us can never extinguish! Jesus was born to give us a true life that begins now and will never end. Jesus was born in the dark of night in a filthy manger to give us a light that can never be extinguished. And it is His birth that makes our birth to eternal life and light possible!
In contrast to the diminishing circles of trust in our culture today, God opened the circle of the Trinity and sent Jesus Christ to live and to die as one of us and to reconcile us and our ruined hearts to Him once and for all. God did not consider the circle he shared with the Son and the Holy Spirit something to be hedged about and guarded. In perfect love, God put a human face on that one, true, perfect light and life that can never be extinguished. In the words of St Paul, God opened wide his arms of love “taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:5-11)
What a gift, this incarnation! God, his life and his light, in the flesh. Christmas is not only the season we celebrate this gift, but also the time we receive the gift of Jesus Christ personally. John puts it plainly “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:12-13)
May we celebrate the greatest gift of all—and better yet may we receive him and lead others to receive him this Christmas and always!
Light and life to all he brings; risen with healing in his wings. Hail the heaven born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King!”
