Incarnation

is God's shocking insistence that flesh and blood like ours

            be the medium of God's Word.

No abstraction,

no lofty vision,

no finely wrought dogma,

no sacred tradition can mollify the shock of this truth:

As one of us

            The Word comes to dwell among us

                        and within us,

                                    as a newborn child,

                                                as Jesus. 

May our flesh and blood too be made the route of Christ's continuing self-gift

            to our world

                        in words and deeds of love and truth,

                        mercy and indignation,

                        healing and forgiveness. 

Let us dare to welcome the Word.

The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church, USA