Loading...Bishop Brian’s Christmas Message 2017
The Kentucky writer, Wendell Berry, has a poem concerning the Christmas season that I would like to share with you—
Remembering that it happened once,
We cannot turn away the thought,
As we go out, cold, to our barns
Toward the long night's end, that we
Ourselves are living in the world
It happened in when it first happened,
That we ourselves, opening a stall
(A latch thrown open countless times
Before), might find them breathing there,
Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw,
The mother kneeling over Him,
The husband standing in belief
He scarcely can believe, in light
That lights them from no source we see,
An April morning's light, the air
Around them joyful as a choir.
We stand with one hand on the door,
Looking into another world
That is this world, the pale daylight
Coming just as before, our chores
To do, the cattle all awake,
Our own white frozen breath hanging
In front of us; and we are here
As we have never been before,
Sighted as not before, our place
Holy, although we knew it not.
For me, this poem captures our deepest belief about the Christ child. We proclaim that the child was born in Bethlehem. Jesus found room in a world that had no room for him. He was born in an unlikely place, especially as we believe Him to be the Savior of the world.
Wendell Berry’s poem helps us to see that we all live near Bethlehem, that we are all walking through doors that we have walked through a thousand times, unlatching latches that we have lifted time and time again, only to stumble upon the Holy Family as we cross the threshold.
Through sacramental time, we are living in the world where it happened. From this world, we do look into another world. As we look, it is the Holy Family looking back at us. We are surprised to see them. That family, filled with grace, sees us with grace and counts us kin to them. One family, on the edge of everything, gives birth to a new world.
In this Christmas season, many people will pass through the doors of Episcopal parishes in East Tennessee. They will hear the good news of the Christ child proclaimed. They will sing the songs of the season and they will hear again that the light of Christ has entered our darkest night.
My hope is that we will also help them see with new eyes as they pass through our doors and back into their neighborhoods. My hope is that we will invite them to see places as if they had never seen them before and know those places to be holy, able to receive the gift of God’s gracious love. Our message is this—because the Christ was born in a manger, any place we see has now been made holy, fit for the possibility of new birth.
I hope you all have a blessed Christmas season and a joyful New Year.
Peace,
The Right Rev. Brian Cole
5th Bishop of East Tennessee
