The Bishop’s Christmas Message

The Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.

These words come from Phillips Brooks’ famous Christmas hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” perhaps the most famous American Christmas text. They seem particularly poignant this year.

Jesus was born into a world of hopes and fears. The place where Jesus was born was full of fear. The land was occupied by the soldiers of a foreign ruler and the people paid taxes – miserably high taxes – to a government other than their own. The society was volatile, almost a tinderbox, and anything but stable.

Yet the people among whom Jesus was born were a hopeful lot. They believed that they were people of a promise – God’s promise – and that God’s blessing was theirs even if sometimes it did not feel that way. So much of their hopefulness was caught up in a deep longing for Messiah, for a savior, for the long-promised one who was coming with healing in his wings to erect a new world order. What they wanted more than anything else was for hope and fear to meet each other.

In the story of the Nativity of Jesus, Mary and Joseph are the embodiments of hope and fear. Imagine the fear that must have shivered its way through Joseph’s body when he found out his betrothed was pregnant! What would people say? And then he starts getting messages from angels about how to handle the situation. Most of us in Joseph’s shoes would have been scared to death.

And Mary, holy mother, you are going to have a baby because you are pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Can you imagine an angelic special delivery that would have instilled more fear in a young teenaged girl? I can’t. “Do not be afraid, Mary,” says the angel. It’s almost a laugh line. Yet right in front of our eyes, Joseph and Mary embrace the fear that confronts them, and hope comes down to meet them. My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

The coming of Jesus as a baby in Bethlehem – the cosmic Christ bursting onto the stage of history as the Incarnate Word of God – is hope and fear meeting together. It is the intersection between all those things we wish were different about the world we live in (including ourselves) and all the possibilities God provides for this world (and for those of us who inhabit it) to be more than different: to be life changing, to be world changing, to be a new creation.

During these holy days of Christmas may hope and fear meet together in your life, may the coming new year be more than different, and may every new day, every place you go, and every person you meet be powerful signs of God’s new creation!

O come to us, abide with us, our Lord, Emmanuel.

Blessings!

The Rt. Rev. J. Neil Alexander Bishop of Atlanta

December 2007