2005 Christmas Message

from the Presiding Bishop of the

Episcopal Church in the United States of America

 

Festivals of Light

 

Anglicanism

 

Archbishop of Canterbury's 2004 Advent Pastoral Letter

 

Archbishop of Canterbury's 2004 Christmas Message

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Incarnation

 

is God's shocking insistence that flesh and blood like ours

            be the medium of Gods Word.

 

No abstraction,

no lofty vision,

no finely wrought dogma,

no sacred tradition can mollify the shock of this truth:

As one of us

            The Word comes to dwell among us

                        and within us,

                                    as a newborn child,

                                                as Jesus. 

 

May our flesh and blood too be made the route of Christs continuing self-gift

            to our world

                        in words and deeds of love and truth,

                        mercy and indignation,

                        healing and forgiveness. 

 

Let us dare to welcome the Word.

 

+ Frank T. Griswold

Presiding Bishop

 

 

[Note: The Presiding Bishop's Christmas message will be available in French at www.episcopalchurch.org/ens next week.]