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Titus 2:11-14

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

Titus 3:4-7

When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: Amen

It is fitting that Luke in his Gospel telling us the story of Jesus birth records the singing of the angelic chorus, because without the hymns and carols of Christmas our celebration would be so much poorer. I have come to believe that the mystery and gift of love we celebrate this night cannot be expressed in word or music alone. Like the joining of the divine and human nature in the baby Jesus we remember this night so only the joining of music and verse can fully express the joy and wonder in our hearts this night.

As I wrote to you and the rest of the Diocese in my Christmas letter, for me, as I imagine for many of you, it is the hymns of Christmas that speak deeply to my sacred memory. Each Christmas as I sing the hymns that I have known and sung since childhood, I reminded of the faithful who have accompanied me on the journey of faith. I cannot sing “Joy to the World” without a part of me being the 10 year old boy singing between my father and grandfather in a little church in Rose City, Michigan.  

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