Dear friends in Christ at Peace and Grue,
A new year always brings a sense of hope. The previous year with all its tragedies, problems, disappointments, failures, and sadness is now behind us, and a clean slate lies ahead. This is symbolized on New Year’s Eve by the old man with the sickle and the newborn baby. The old has passed away; the new has come. With whistles and horns and parties, we usher in the New Year.
Yet, beneath the celebration, there’s a gnawing feeling that nothing’s really changed. We continue to encounter a virus unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Political strife continues to be the news coming out of Washington D.C. and St. Paul. While the nightly news has heightened our awareness of the lawlessness that continues in so many of our communities.
We’ve also seen people at their best: Nurses, doctors, front-line workers, who continue to serve in dangerous and exhausting conditions. Educators, who also place themselves at risk as they resumed in-person classrooms instruction, deserve to be applauded as well. As do council members, Sunday School teachers, organists, and congregations who are trying to do church, to be followers of Jesus, to be God’s people in the midst of a very difficult time.
As God’s people, we have no choice, but to re-think and answer questions like: What happened in 2021? What is happening as we begin a new year? What will be as we dive headfirst into 2022? “What was…what is…and what is to come…” we are constantly teasing out this tri-fold view of our lives, as we ponder where God is in all this.
Looking back into the history of God’s people, we see that our ancestors in the faith have had their own valleys to walk through. God’s people had been scattered to the four winds and yet in the midst of their exile, God’s prophet Jeremiah shared these words of hope: “With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back… their life shall become like a watered garden and they shall never languish again... I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.” (Jeremiah 9-13)
Imagine hearing these words of Jeremiah, back when the Babylonian exile occurred, would you doubt? Would you believe? Would these words bring a sense of relief? Tough to say when you’re in the midst if mourning and sadness. In Jesus, however, the game changed. In Jesus, redemption is close at hand. In Jesus, God brings us close. It takes faith to know that. The Good News is that God provides that faith healing our wounds in time through family and friends, through water, bread, and wine, through the Gospel preached and prayers lifted.
Each of us has a new road ahead of us in the New Year. It’s another road, a different road than any we’ve traveled on before. As we step off down that road, not knowing what we may find, it is comforting to know that the Light goes with us, leading us, guiding us, showing us the way. Even now God is calling each of us, whatever our circumstance, to rise and shine and continue the journey, sharing the Good News with others along the way.
Blessing to you in this New Year,
Pastor Dan