A Christmas Message From Bishop Hollingsworth 2009

December 23, 2009

"And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." Luke 2:7

Swaddling cloths. Not clothes, as translated in the King James Version, not some sort of fitted or tailored garments, but simple strips of blanket or other cloth in which infants are wrapped. Since 4000 years before Christ's birth, newborns have been swaddled in such cloths for warmth, sometimes in the belief that it would protect against deformity, and always because it seemed to help them sleep.

Our four children were swaddled in the soft cotton blankets in which they came home for the first time. I took care and pleasure in placing each in the middle of a blanket laid out like a diamond, then folding the bottom corner up over the feet and legs, drawing one side corner across the body, then wrapping the opposite corner back across and all the way around to make a snug bundle. It was a satisfying bit of engineering, like making a good hospital bed corner. And I always imagined it gave them a sense of security, being wrapped up tightly like that, perhaps because it was reminiscent of where they had spent the first nine months of their formation. While I have no conscious recollection of being swaddled, I do remember the comforting feeling of security when, as a young child I was tucked tightly into my bed. I know it helped me sleep.

Because the Christ is born anew in you and me, we are each wrapped tight in the swaddling cloths of God's love. No matter how cold the world may seem or how vulnerable to it we might feel, no matter where we fear there is no room for us or how little we think we count in the census of human worth, no matter how overwhelming the faithful task before us or how inadequate to it we believe we are, because we are in Christ and he is in us, we can rest secure in the divine embrace that holds us still and reminds us where we have come from and whose we are. It is from that swaddled start, over and over again, that we each grow into the full stature of Christ.

This Christmas, as we open our hearts to receive anew the incarnate God, I pray that we will each experience ever more fully the swaddling love of that same God whose affection and care surrounds as securely as the cloths that swaddled the firstborn of all creation, Christ Jesus our Savior.

May every blessing of the Christ child be with you and those you love.

The Rt. Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Jr.
Bishop of Ohio