Bishop Andrew Asbil has shared a video message for Christmas. The full text is below.
Christmas: The Invitation
It happens quietly. Not in palaces or temples, not with edicts or proclamations, but in the fields – among shepherds, watching and waiting through the night.
When the angels appear, the shepherds are afraid. Who wouldn’t be? Yet something in them stirs – a hope, a glimmer of wonder. They get up and go. They leave their flocks behind to follow a promise. That’s how the good news begins – not with certainty, but with curiosity and courage. To go, to see with open eyes and open hearts.
And what do they find but the most ordinary scene. A small family seeking warmth and refuge with the animals, a baby cushioned in a bed of straw. A love so powerful and profound contained in the small and the fragile, in the cries of a newborn and a parent’s tender touch. Sacredness in intimate moments and simple gestures that change the very fabric of life.
We are there, too, at the manger, whenever we love as God loves. When we tune out, just for an instant, the noise and the distraction, and we hold those precious moments of peace and stillness in our hearts.
In a world filled with spectacle, God shows up in the places we least expect holiness to dwell. And we are called to get up and go, to see with open eyes and open hearts, and to bear witness to that holiness wherever we find it. For in every act of wonder, every step toward love, the story of God’s coming among us begins again.
