Bishop Mark Lawrence for Christmas–Mabel’s Christmas Letter

I don’t know what peo­ple do who cel­e­brate Christ­mas with­out the Lord Jesus. They must feel ter­ri­bly empty when they wake up the next day with presents unwrapped, the food eaten and life back to nor­mal. No won­der the doc­tors say so many folk get depressed dur­ing the hol­i­days. I think peo­ple have for­got­ten that Love came down at Christ­mas. God’s Love! God’s Son””our Sav­ior! He did not grow up out of this ancient world of ours as if he was the best we had to offer. No, dear friends, He came down from heaven””God looked down and saw our need and so He sent His Son. That is why we call him, Immanuel, “God with us”. It is odd how you learn new things about that. Twelve years ago when my hus­band died it was my first Christ­mas in 54 years with­out my dar­ling Hank. I was all alone in my liv­ing room and I said, “Lord, I don’t think I can go on. I’m so alone.” Then the room seemed to grow unusu­ally quiet and the Lord seemed to say to me, “Mabel””you are not alone””always there will be two of us. Oth­ers may leave but I will stay.” That’s what Christ­mas means to me. God is with us””God is with me.

So go ahead. Dec­o­rate your trees and houses. I sup­pose it puts us all in a more cheer­ful mood. Give the chil­dren their gifts. Fill your stom­achs with all the deli­cious foods. But lis­ten to an old lady, if only for a moment. Sooner or later a per­son has to real­ize he is not going to live for­ever. No mat­ter how hard we try to live upstand­ing lives there is a lot we do in this life for which we need to be for­given. When we stand before God’s judg­ment every­one needs a Sav­ior. Besides there is more than once in a man’s or woman’s life she stands before a cross­road and doesn’t know what path to take. If you don’t have a Sav­ior and Lord at these times you’re rud­der­less. You’re like a boat adrift on the open sea. You’re like that boy, Daniel, out in a boat in the wild ocean waves look­ing for his dead father. Look””I’m swim­ming out to the lamp post to hold out this ram­bling let­ter to you like some ragged and torn umbrella for some poor soul to grab hold of ”˜less he miss Christ­mas alto­gether. It is the least I can do for my Lord who is with me even when Christ­mas is over. I know I’ve ram­bled on but I do want to wish you and yours a Merry Christ­mas and a God-filled New Year!

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