This guest post is by Jill Crainshaw.
“The Christ Child and tiny lights” by Sheila G. Hunter, used by permission.
Danced
Unfurled
Unleashed
In the beginning … a Word …
Sparked
Ignited
Illumined
Hope.
Peace.
Joy.
Love.
Life.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us.
But oh, how wordy we have become. Speeches and spin doctors. Tweets and tabloids. Debates and diatribes. Talk that says nothing but harms hundreds. So many empty utterances harass our eyes and ears, distracting us from the cries of our world’s most vulnerable ones.
Today, O God, we encounter again your Word in a manger. Not what we expected. Your Word in swaddling clothes. Your Word in an infant’s searching eyes. Your Word in a newborn’s reaching hands. Your Word in Aleppo’s rubble. Your Word in human flesh of every hue.
Give us wisdom, Earth-dwelling God, to talk less and birth your Word each day in our flesh and skin, in embodied tidings of hope, joy, peace and love.
Amen.
About Jill Crainshaw
Jill Crainshaw is a PCUSA minister and Blackburn Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She is the author of several books on worship and ministry.
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