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CHRISTMAS MESSAGE – 2020
While the Lenten Season and Easter assure us of salvation through faith in what God accomplished through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in that while we were yet sinners, God was in Christ Jesus reconciling the world unto Himself, IT IS Advent and the Messiah’s birth that assure us that God has not given up on the world. That covenant is sealed by the coming of the Christ Child, born to the Virgin Mary, in Bethlehem of Judea, wrapped in swaddling clothing, laid in a manger.
“To us a Child of Hope is born, To us a Son is given:
Him shall the tribes of Earth obey, Him all the Host of Heaven!”
This Season of HOPE and EXPECTATION could not have come at a better time in 2020!
Do you suppose that maybe the timing of the emergency approval of two vaccines to combat the Coronavirus is as much symbolic as it is pragmatic in that it comes at the height of contagion and death from the pandemic as “a glorious Light to people who dwell in death’s surrounding night?”
After four years of divisive rhetoric, hate mongering and unprecedented racial tensions fueled by our Chief Executive, we are thankful for the outcome of the National Elections – another sign that God has not given up on America (or the world).
Just think, the same man whom Evangelicals and Conservatives dubbed, “The Promised One,” as he stood with his hand lifted towards heaven in a blasphemous display of glory that was not his to claim, (HE) now shows utter indifference (even contempt!) for the plight of the people (even those who sold their souls and compromised their personal integrity as they sought his blessing. Sadder still are those who even in his electoral defeat glory in the prospect of his “second coming (another term in Office!).”
Our Christmas Prayer is for a return to some semblance of “normalcy,” even if that means incorporating the lessons and revelations that have sustained us in order to make a radically different NEW NORMAL!
We pray as we pledge to work for police reform so that those who are sworn to protect life will be held responsible when they exercise blatant disregard for Black and Brown lives.
We pray that Congress will finally pass Voting Rights legislation that will once and for all time take away the “shenanigans” that compromise the popular vote, and that marginalize all but the privileged!
Our prayer is that inoculation against the COVID Virus will create a level of immunity whereby the “church scattered” may once again be the “church gathered!”
“His name shall be the Prince of Peace,
For evermore adored!
The Wonderful, the Counselor,
The Great and Mighty Lord!”
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!
Bishop and Supervisor FUGH
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