Transcript of Bishop Hollerith’s 2012 Christmas Message video
Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia
December 18, 2012
Grace and peace to you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
As I sit here seven days before Christmas, I find that my reflections today are very much colored by events in Connecticut this past week and that terrible, terrible tragedy of the death of children and teachers. It reminds all of us of a couple of things.
The first is that evil is real. Evil in the world is a force that is a reality. And it is a force that we are sometimes powerless over. We are vulnerable as human beings and, despite all our technology and all our knowledge and ability, there are times when our vulnerability is obvious before events we cannot control.
There is a darkness to the world. Isaiah talks about that darkness – that there is a darkness before us, that the people sit in darkness. I’m reminded of a quote from W.H. Auden, “Nothing can save us that is possible. We who are about to die demand a miracle.”
We live with an idealized vision of what Christmas is like. But in reality, the world in which Jesus came, was born into, was a world where suffering, violence and death was very, very much a part of the context of the people to whom he came to be with.
I’m reminded of Herod and the slaughtering of the innocents shortly after Jesus’ birth – the slaughtering of the innocent children of Bethlehem. That’s the world into which Jesus came. It is the world in which we live.
There’s an attempt, I think, at times to explain these things using the intellect, using science or using some aspect of wisdom to say why these terrible things happen. But I think we know, deep down inside, there are no easy answers to this.
Our response – the church’s response – especially at Christmas, is simply to talk about the one who comes to save us, to bring light to the darkness. I’m reminded of the book of Job, where Job is consoled by his friends who try to give him various arguments as to why he has received such suffering from God.
But ultimately none of those explanations satisfy Job. The only thing that speaks to Job is God’s presence. The fact that God would come and speak to him directly. And it’s that presence that gives Job meaning and hope - the presence of God.
At Christmas, God says to his creation, I’m willing to experience what you experience, to feel what you feel, to think what you think, to laugh as you laugh, and to suffer as you suffer. I am willing to draw you and the whole world to myself. It’s so simple and so elegant. A birth, a gesture of insignificant proportion and yet one of infinite consequence.
This holiday season, I hope you will keep in your prayers all those in Newtown, Connecticut, who are suffering from deep loss and grief. And that you will pray as well for this country, as we learn to heal from what has happened and as we come to terms with the issues we have in our society that causes these things to happen.
I pray that we as Christians will remember that what we have to offer is not only ourselves together as community, but also this great message of the one that has come to redeem the world. “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.
Those that have lived in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined. For a child has been born for us. A son has been given to us. Authority rests upon his shoulders and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:2-6)
God’s blessings to you.