Christmas 2006
Christmas is a gift … an enormous one wrapped in love, secured in hope. It is the same gift the shepherds found in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.
That babe was not a future king who would grow to be our Saviour; he was and is our king and Saviour … the Word made flesh.
This time of year our children are preoccupied with Dora and Bob the Builder, with X-boxes and iPods. Sometimes it is difficult for us to appreciate their full stature through their youth and exuberance, just as it must have been difficult for the shepherds to recognize a king in a stable.
Our young people are not the church of tomorrow any more than those of us creeping toward old age are the church of yesterday. We are all The Church today.
I know from experience it is worth the effort to get to know our young people. Not just the little shepherds in their bathrobes and tea towels, the angels with their wings and halos –– but their older brothers and sisters too, even the ones with blue Jell-O hair and pierced eyebrows. When we know them it is easier to recognize them as the enormous gift they truly are.
At the birth of our new millennium, we made young people a priority in this diocese. Since then I believe we have all benefited from the resources we have invested in them. So as we adore the Christ Child this Christmas season, let us also appreciate each other, no matter how young or old.
Please know that I appreciate you and that we are The Church together this day.
God bless you now and in the year to come.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Claude, Bishop of Fredericton