Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
 
The incarnation of Jesus is for us one of the great and overt expressions of God's desire for intimacy and reconciliation with all of creation. It is by Jesus' birth two millennia ago in Bethlehem and today in each of us, that the divine intention of universal justice, mercy, and peace comes to life. In the nativity of Jesus, we are challenged to become new ourselves, transformed and empowered by God's own spirit of holiness to be agents of the Holy, vehicles through which the world might be healed and made whole.
 
If a hay trough in a livestock stable two thousand years ago was worthy of receiving the God of all creation, then surely your heart and mine can be as well. I pray this Christmas that, following Mary, Joseph, the angels, and the shepherds, we might open our hearts to the love, both infinitely powerful and infinitely vulnerable, that took on flesh in the infant Christ, to the end that, through us, fear might be met with faith, violence disarmed by charity, power leavened by mercy, poverty overwhelmed by generosity, self-interest dismantled by self-sacrifice, and desperation replaced with hope.
 
With every Christmas blessing,
 
The Rt. Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Jr.
Bishop of Ohio
 
 
Christmas Eve Haiku Quartet
 
I.
The distant star's light,
piercing the dark of our hearts,
sin and hope reveals.
 
II.
Our warring souls plead:
Come, defenseless protector.
Illumine. Disarm.
 
III.
Truth tonight becomes
the heart's infant resident,
Justice, its sibling.
 
IV.
Labor's breathless cry,
camels' nuzzing: welcome's hymn.
Come, Emmanuel.
 
(Nuzzing: the noise made by camels; an intimate greeting between friends)