Bishop Bena's Christmas Message 2009

Approaching Christmas is always a nostalgic time for me. How about you? There were six kids in my family and I was number five. We lived in a big farm house just ten miles from where Mary Ellen and I now live. One of my best Christmases was when I was eight or nine years old. My two older brothers were off in the Korean War but somehow were both able to get home for Christmas that year. What a glorious time of reunion it was! Such happiness as we all decorated the tree. Our family tradition was to put up the tree and decorate it on Christmas Eve after an early supper. A lot of families had that tradition back then. At eleven o'clock, we got in several cars and drove through the blizzard down to our village church for Midnight Mass. I remember nothing about the service except that one of my brothers kept falling asleep and my mother kept poking him. Mass over, we returned home and slept through the rest of the night. Morning found my brothers out milking cows and then all of us oohing and ahhing over our gifts before a hearty farm breakfast got our attention. Idyllic. Priceless. Old America. So what's missing?

What was missing for me was Jesus. I never quite put the importance of his birth into focus until I was an adult with a wife and child myself. Although my parents kept Christ in Christmas, I somehow missed it. I just enjoyed the glitter. I know better now.

You see, with all the tinsel and lights, we sometimes forget WHY Jesus was born on the earth. Was it just a sentimental act by a sentimental old god? I dont think so. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians, Chapter 4, verses 4-5, sums it up quite well, "But in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." The birth of Jesus was not just some sentimental act. It was an act of redemption for us. We were slaves to sin and needed redeeming from the slavery of sin. The archangel Gabriel said to Joseph, she (Mary) will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Christmas - Its all about our sin and our need for freedom from the slavery of sin. Its all about a God who loves us so much that He will go to extreme lengths to win our freedom. He had to do that by assuming human flesh. And He did that, in His usual humble way, by sending His Son to be born to a young maiden and her espoused carpenter husband, in a lowly manger. And nothing has been the same since! That baby would grow to be first a carpenter, then a rabbi, then a savior-our savior. On the cross, he took our sins and paid the consequences for them.

Ah, but that comes later. For now, let us enjoy the moment. The Bambino. God Incarnate. And the understanding that He came to set us free! Freedom for you and for me. Merry Christmas.

Anglican District of the Northeast