Archives for 2014

Light in the Darkness

December 24, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7
preached on Christmas Eve 2014 at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

These are strange days to be talking so much about light. We’ve just journeyed through the shortest day of the year, but there’s plenty of other darkness in our world, too. Turn on the television or radio any day and you can hear it right away—darkness is all around us. Wars and conflicts rage around the world, and there are refugees and displaced persons everywhere who have been forced out of their homes to live in refugee camps for years on end. Violence and injustice keep inching closer and closer to home, not to mention all of the people in need of a warm and dry place to sleep. Those chosen to lead us in so many different places and ways toss about harsh words of blame that ignore the way we all participate in the difficulties of our world and so get in the way of the possibilities of reconciliation and new life. Peace and light just seem far off, dreams surely not to be realized in our lifetime if ever at all. So when Isaiah talks about “the people who walk in darkness,” we have a pretty good idea of what the darkness he might be talking about.

But even amidst all the struggles and pain of our world, we have nonetheless seen a great light. The prophet speaks of three great marks of light shining in his own day: joy rising in the nation as it grows and reflects more and more the fullness of God’s mercy, freedom finding expression and hope as all the marks of oppression and pain are torn away, and the fullness of peace coming as the garments of war are burned up as fuel for the fire of hope.

These great marks of light find their greatest expression in the child born “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” His authority is taking hold to show new and different ways in all the world. He will reign with justice and righteousness “from this time onward and forevermore.” And God’s power and promise will bring all these things to fruition even in those times when it seems so completely impossible and improbable.

In our time, the light comes to us, too. Just as Jesus was born on that Christmas two millennia ago, so Jesus is born anew in us and in our world each year in this celebration. So on this night when we hear the familiar words of Jesus’ birth again, when we wonder with Mary and Joseph about the gift of this newborn Jesus, when we join our voices with the angels to proclaim the birth of a baby who changes the world, when we welcome the presence of God into human flesh as Jesus is born of Mary, when we experience the promise of light shining into the darkest corners of our world, we see the light coming to us.

But we cannot simply sit still—we must respond. How are we to live now that we are people who have walked in darkness but now seen a great light? This light shines so brightly that it not only illumines our lives but also guides us as we seek the transformation and renewal of all things and energizes us as we seek the peace and wholeness that can come only from the Prince of Peace. This light shines forth from the strange event we celebrate tonight. Writer and radio host Krista Tippett reminds us well of the mystery and wonder of this night:

There is something audacious and mysterious and reality-affirming in the assertion that has stayed alive for two thousand years that God took on eyes and ears and hands and feet, hunger and tears and laughter and the flu, joy and pain and gratitude and our terrible, redemptive human need for each other.

In the midst of all that troubles us and our world, Christmas shows us that God’s light shines through in the way that God comes to know our human condition so very personally and then seeks to transform it. And this light shines forth when we carry the light that we have shared in this gathering tonight into our lives, honoring the humanity of all as Jesus did in his life and ministry and working for justice, peace, and reconciliation in every corner of our world.

Who better can share the light of life than people who have known darkness all too well? Who better knows the depth of struggle that must be addressed in our world than the people who have faced it directly and emerged to bear even greater light? Who better to make God’s presence real in the everyday than the very people like us who have seen him here, who have shared this great feast and been fed in this holy meal? Who better than us to help bring God’s light into the darkness? And if we don’t join in this work, who will?

So as we go forth from this Christmas Eve, as we bear the light of this night into the darkness and uncertainty of our world, may God strengthen us to shine this light in the darkness each and every day until it shines so brightly that all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Making the Story Our Own

December 21, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 1:26-56
preached on December 21, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

As some of you know, I am a collector of nativity scenes. Over the past seven or eight years, I’ve managed to assemble a collection that includes a depiction of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus from every continent except Australia and Antarctica. I’m still trying to complete those last two, though I suspect that anything from Antarctica might be nothing more than a puddle of water by the time it gets to me!

The incredible thing about all these nativity scenes is the variety of different ways that they depict the same story. The materials vary based on the things common to that part of the world, and there are cultural differences in dress, look, and even skin color. Even beyond this, though, these different nativities show Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and others with a variety of different expressions and feelings. Sometimes they are shown with great seriousness and piety, other times with a bit of happiness and satisfaction. One setting has nothing more than the name of each character in a simple typeface on a block of wood, and there’s even one where Mary looks so peaceful and prayerful that I think she may be asleep!

All these different depictions of the nativity remind me that this is ultimately the story of God coming into our world, taking human form just like us, coming to us to relate to us as one of us. While Jesus was certainly born into a particular time and place, bearing the cultural, religious, and personal markers of his human identity, all these different depictions of the nativity remind us that we are constantly called to make this story our own.

The pre-birth story that marks our reading this morning is filled with so many wonderful moments that can touch our lives: the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary, the news that the young virgin Mary will bear a child by the power of the Holy Spirit, the visit of Mary to her relative Elizabeth, the songs offered by Elizabeth and Mary as they sort out what these strange events mean for one another and the world, and the extended conversations between these two very blessed women about the children they are bearing into the world. All these different elements of this story connect to our lives in different ways based on our individual experiences, our cultural backgrounds, the circumstances of our time, and even our varied spiritual experiences. As we sort out what all these things mean for us, all those different nativities might help us a bit, for just as they give us so many different depictions of the same story, so we can remember that we will carry even among us gathered here today many different connections to this story behind the birth of Jesus.

Even with our varied interpretations and connections, there are I think two particularly important elements of this story for us to carry with us in these final days on the journey to Christmas and beyond. The first is the vision of holy friendship that we see in the encounter between Elizabeth and Mary. Our Advent Bible study lifted up this theme beautifully, and so some of you have talked about this with me before, but there is something truly incredible that we see in the encounter between these two pregnant women. Elizabeth and Mary are connected by many things. They both thought that they could not bear children—Mary because she was too young, Elizabeth because she was too old. They both were wandering through the uncertainties of pregnancy in a day and age when the health of mother and child were at far greater risk than today. And they both knew through an encounter with the divine that the child each was bearing would be special and set apart for God’s incredible purposes.

These common experiences brought Elizabeth and Mary together in a bond that only they could understand. In reflecting on this connection, author Enuma Okoro observes, “It is a testament to God’s care and provision that each woman has someone to journey with as she navigates the peculiar seasons in which she finds herself.” (Silence and Other Surprising Invitations of Advent, p. 67) As we reflect on this story and make it our own, we can think about the holy companions that we have on our journeys. Who can open our eyes to a deeper understanding of how God is at work in our lives and our world? What sorts of people are among us—or should we seek to be among us—who can remind us of our blessedness and challenge us to help others to embrace their blessedness? How can we be ready to welcome people into our lives—and into the life we share in this place—to be the kinds of companions that we need to journey with us?

The holy friendship that Mary and Elizabeth shared can take so many different forms in our world. For some, it may come in the relationships of marriage and lifelong commitment. Others may find it in friends who can walk together amidst the many changes of life. Some may find it within their families, with siblings or even between parents and children. And some holy friendships may even last for an extremely short season of life and yet still show the kind of divine presence and holy imagination that emerged so beautifully between Elizabeth and Mary. Whatever form these holy friendships may take, they all can build on the kind of connection that Mary and Elizabeth shared, for just as they found support in one another as they waited to welcome their children into the world, we too can deepen our faith and find new hope as we share our joys and struggles with one another along the way.

Just as holy friendship can open us to one way of making this story our own as we find a new and different way to live together, the great song of Mary that follows in their encounter can show us to a new way of being in the world. Mary offers this great song known as the Magnificat after her initial encounter with Elizabeth, as the impact of their shared joy settles in all the more. Mary’s Magnificat, so named because of its first word in the Latin that was the primary language of the church and Bible for so many years, builds on the tradition of the psalms and canticles of the Old Testament, especially the Song of Hannah, mother of Samuel, to give praise for God’s great works and the promise of justice and righteousness for all creation that is being fulfilled in Mary’s life as she bears Jesus into the world.

But this is more than any old song. Mary’s song here is the song of a mother who realizes that her child will change the world, of a woman who recognizes the deep blessing that has come to her and the world through her because of the child she is bearing, of a person who can see the transformation that God is making real in the world. Mary gives praise to God for the things that she is experiencing and the blessing that she is finding, but she clearly knows that this is ultimately not about her. She continues her song beyond this personal understanding of blessing to give praise to a God who brings favor when the world would never dream of such, shows mercy from generation to generation, scatters the proud from their places of privilege, turns the tables of power upside down, offers a strange but real preference for those who are poor or in need, fills the hungry with good things, and remembers promises of mercy and hope.

Empowered by the gift of holy friendship with one who understands the challenge and blessing of her life, Mary proclaims the greatness of a God who turns the world upside down, and we can echo her words of praise not just in the gift of our next hymn based on her song but also by living our lives in ways that further God’s justice, peace, mercy, and grace in our world. The incarnation of Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas becomes real when we find ways to make this story our own, when we discover how God has not just broken into the world of first-century Palestine but twenty-first century New York City, when God’s presence is not just something that we experience in our hearts but that we see taking root around us in the transformation of our world.

In the holy friendships of our lives that give us space for fear and hope amidst uncertainty, in the joyful songs that challenge us to make God’s work more real in our world, we encounter the one who comes in these days, the one who turns everything upside down in a baby born in the most humble of circumstances who yet reigns over all the earth, the one who makes all things new through death and resurrection to new life. So as we journey these final days toward Christmas, may we find ways to make this story our own, whether it be in nativity scenes that help us to see these characters as people like us, in seeking holy friendships that open us to God’s presence in our lives in new ways, or in the ways we join all that God is doing in our world to live out the joys of Mary’s song. And as we go along this way, may we be ready to welcome the fullness of Christ’s gift into our lives and our world both this Christmas and when he comes in power to finish making all things new. Lord, come quickly! Amen.

John, the Unexpected Advent Guest

December 14, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on John 1:6-8, 19-28
preached on December 14, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

A week or so ago, I lamented to myself a bit that it seemed like the usual flow of Christmas cards just hadn’t started yet this year. Even with a shorter-than-usual time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, people—me included!—hadn’t done a particularly great job of getting out their Christmas cards yet. But this week they started coming in, filled with fun pictures of recent events and the quick updates on life and living that come with the now-ubiquitous Christmas letter.

In this era of Facebook and Twitter, with near-immediate reports and photographs from our friends, the Christmas letter sometimes seems like a dying tradition, but there’s still something wonderful in hearing a more complete perspective from those friends who haven’t been in as close touch in recent months for one reason or another, even when it is all written in the strangest third-person perspective ever! One Christmas letter this year, though, stood out to me as I journeyed through this week. One friend, in writing about his three-and-a-half-year-old son, reported a bit of confusion that seems familiar amidst our gospel reading for this week:

Don’t correct him when he brings home a picture of John the Baptist, because he sees God in that picture!

My friend’s son was not the first to get John all mixed up. Most scholars think that there was a sizable group of people in or around the early church who remembered and celebrated John the Baptist and his teaching more than we do today, so the gospel writers and others seemingly felt that it was important to include him in the story somehow. There are by my informal count more clear and direct references to him in the gospels than to Jesus’ own mother!

Yet John is a pretty unexpected guest for this season of Advent. His rugged appearance and harsh message aren’t exactly the best fit for this season when we expect to be talking about peace, joy, and hope. Yet here we are, eleven days before Christmas, faced with a gospel reading about a man who insisted that he was not who people thought he ought to be. In our reading from the gospel according to John today, John the Baptist—no relation to the gospel writer John—puts the major focus on describing who he is not.

John the Baptist clearly was regularly being mistaken for the Messiah, and in everything attributed to him in our tradition he refutes this. Even though he could clearly express who he was not, finding the words to say who he was was a little more difficult for him. When the religious leaders of Jerusalem sent messengers to try to get some answers about John, they engaged him in conversation about who he was. He acknowledged who he was, but that was not enough for them, so he told them directly, “I am not the Messiah.” They thought he might be Elijah, but again he told them that they were mistaken. Finally, when they asked him again who he was, John, like Jesus after him, answered with something of a roundabout answer, quoting scripture to say,

I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’

John the Baptist, then, was the one who called on the people to get ready for the days ahead, to prepare their hearts and minds to receive this one who was coming, to clear the old, tired pathway to make a way for something new. His message of repentance, so prominent in the other gospels, is missing here, so the gospel of John’s message about John the Baptist is perhaps less clear than some of the others. We are told that John baptized the people with water, which raised plenty of questions along the way, but that’s about it.

Yet the author of the gospel summarizes John the Baptist’s work by calling him “a witness to testify to the light” in Jesus Christ, though not the light himself. Throughout it all, John pointed beyond himself to someone greater, to one who was already emerging among them, to one who was far greater than John could ever be, for John was “not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” Yet as my friend’s son so well recognized, there was something beyond special—maybe even strangely divine—about our unexpected Advent guest.

In our day and age, in a season when we are so easily consumed by all the consumption around us, John’s message of preparation easily falls on deaf ears. We are too busy to stop and slow down to prepare the way of the Lord. We are so interested in fixing our own problems and saving ourselves that we neglect to pay attention when others show us a better way. And we are even a bit afraid of anything that emerges from the wilderness, of anything that is different and new, even if it is a voice crying out for justice and righteousness that will transform us and our world.

John is just not the guy we want to shape our preparations for Christmas. He’s a bit like that relative who always shows up for Christmas, even when you don’t want him to. He never quite fits in with anyone and he talks so strangely that he often doesn’t make sense, but you can’t tell him not to come because he’s ultimately part of the family just as much as anyone else. So what do we do with John the Baptist in these days of preparation? How do we deal with this unwanted intruder—I mean unexpected guest!—into the joy of our Advent season?

Rather than throw him out or ignore him, I think we are called to embrace John and his strange ways as we prepare to welcome Jesus in our midst. First, John gives us an important message of preparation. The coming of Jesus at Christmas is something that needs real preparation. Just as we can’t host an incredible Christmas feast without lots of preparation around the house, our hearts and minds need some preparation, too. The cobwebs of our past understandings of salvation and justice need to be cleaned up so that we can welcome our God who comes to us in unexpected ways. The dirt and dust of underused spirituality that pile up in our lives need to be swept away. And the longstanding practices and systems of our lives and our world that perpetuate injustice need to be the focus of our repentance.

Beyond this, John reminds us that this season is not about us or our practices. Ultimately the coming of Jesus at Christmas is not about the words of the greetings that we share in this season, the songs that we sing about Christmas, or what we call the symbols that we have developed ourselves for this season. Just as John insisted that none of this was about him, so we are called to make this season not about us or our favorite practices or the people we want but rather about the birth of a baby to an unwed mother in the midst of a troubled empire who ended up being tortured and killed because he insisted that all lives matter. In his actions of pointing the way to Jesus, John insists that we need to stop pointing to ourselves, our churches or institutions, or our traditions or past understandings. Instead, John tells us that we must always point to Jesus, the one who comes to make all things new.

And John finally reminds us to always be reflecting and testifying to the light that has come and is coming. All that we say and do in our lives should point to the light of Christ. Like John, we are not worthy of even reflecting this light or pointing to this gift, but we are nonetheless given this privilege by the power of this one who comes to transform us and our world.

So whatever we do with our unexpected guest John the Baptist, whether we get him a bit mixed up or try to send him away, whether we claim his message of proclamation for ourselves or seek to put him off for another day, may God help us to heed his call to prepare this new way of the Lord, to get ourselves out of the way of it, and to always bear witness to this new light, so that as we watch and wait for the coming of Christ this Advent and in the days to come, we might join in all that God is doing to make all things new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord, come quickly! Amen.

A Reflection on “Comfort ye…”

December 7, 2014 By Andy James

a reflection on Isaiah 40:1-11 and the opening movements of Handel’s Messiah
offered on December 7, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

The music we just heard is some of the most beautiful I know. The opening notes of “Comfort ye my people” that were just sung so tenderly bring a chill to my spine and a tear to my eye every time I hear them. The impassioned words of the prophet Isaiah that form the basis for Handel’s incredible music speak volumes today.

Our world needs comfort—comfort amidst the violence that swirls around us, comfort for the pain that so many face every day, comfort for injustice revealed when we fail to recognize the full humanity of some of those who walk this journey with us. We know all too well the pain that the prophet describes when he speaks of the city Jerusalem that has “served her term,” paid her penalty, and “received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Some two and a half millennia after these words were first uttered, Jerusalem itself is still in need of comfort. So many other nations and cities and towns and families face similar pain and heartache. People near and far find brokenness to be the norm in their lives and in our world. Amidst the depth of pain and the harsh reality of injustice, words of comfort seem almost inappropriate, for the brokenness we face is not something that can be dealt with through simple platitudes or assurances that God will make everything okay in the end.

Maybe we, like those of Isaiah’s day, also need someone to cry out for a new way. There are plenty of voices crying out in these days:

Hands up, don’t shoot!
I can’t breathe.
All lives matter.

These voices are joining with those of so many other times and places, with the voice of even the prophet, who proclaimed, “Prepare the way of the Lord!” Before they suggest a new and different way, all these voices make the difficulty of these days clear. The wilderness of these days is thick and real. The deserts of our world are dry and thirsty. The valleys around us are deeper than ever, and the mountains that challenge us are higher than we can remember. If we are to follow the prophet’s instruction and make a highway of peace and justice for our God, we will surely need the largest highway construction project ever—even bigger than the incredible reconstruction work going on in Isaiah’s day as the people of Israel returned from exile to rebuild their homes and lives in their beloved homeland after forty years of waiting.

In these days of waiting, as we look for the glory of the Lord to be revealed, as we long for signs of justice and peace amidst all the brokenness of our world, as we watch for evidence that things are really going to change in all the deserts and wilderness and valleys and mountains of our world, there is much work to do to make things new and different. How do we listen to one another along this way so that we can truly hear the pain and hurt faced by our sisters and brothers? How do we work to transform the systems—the powers and principalities, as the apostle Paul sometimes called them—that perpetuate injustice and allow some lives to matter more than others? And how do we join the great divine construction project to prepare the way of the Lord and make things different and just and right for everyone who journeys with us along the way?

The way forward in these days is not clear. Some days I wonder what good any action will do, thinking that it might just be best to throw in the towel and just wait until Jesus comes again. Yet I am convinced more than ever that God’s comfort is real, that the way things are can and will change now, that God is working in us and through us and even in spite of us to bring hope and justice and peace.

The way forward to reveal all these things is not clear, yet God calls us to step out in faith and hope to make God’s love and justice real. May Advent open us and our world to a new way ahead, to the things that are coming and especially the One who has come and is coming to make all things new. Lord, come quickly! Amen.

Times and Seasons

November 16, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
preached on November 16, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

It doesn’t take much these days to figure out that we’ve entered a new season. The trees show it off well—we’re well past the peak of fall colors, and the remaining leaves will disappear completely over the next couple weeks. The air is starting to show it too—after a fall that at times felt more like summer, it finally seems cold enough to be headed into winter very soon. And the days are showing it as much as anything—between the end of Daylight Savings Time a couple weeks ago and the generally shorter days that come at this time of year, it seems like we’ve shaved two hours of sunlight off each day in only a couple weeks! So where there is clearly a new season around us, the apostle Paul is right to say that we don’t need anything written to us—we know exactly what he is talking about.

Even beyond this shift in seasons that is so obvious around us, other things are changing, too. The midterm elections of a couple weeks ago are signaling a change in politics in Albany and Washington that will have limited immediate impact but may change things for us over the long term. The circumstances of our lives are shifting and changing in ways that we can’t always see when we’re dealing with the details of them up close but that can’t be missed when you take a step or two back. And even the world of our church is changing in ways that we don’t fully understand or see as leadership and generations shift, the world changes around us, and God keeps calling us to work and act in this day and age.

As constant a reality as change is in our world, Paul’s point may be a bit different than the shifting times and seasons of our world. Rather than focusing on the signs of the times and the marks of the changing seasons, Paul seems to encourage the Thessalonians to be thinking about and looking for “the day of the Lord.” The “day of the Lord” is surely nothing new to the Thessalonians, and it should come as no surprise to us, either. It is a longstanding concept of biblical time that is quite distinct from “the Lord’s Day,” which comes every Sunday. The day of the Lord is a bigger thing that reflects a day of judgment and transformation. It was first mentioned by some of the prophets of the Old Testament, and later John the Baptist and Jesus picked up on it in their own teaching and ministry. In the early church, in the time of Paul, the day of the Lord was assumed to be coming any day, and it is clear from some of the writings of Paul and others that people were starting to get frustrated that it had not yet come.

So here Paul assures the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord is coming, but that seems almost like a secondary point to him. Because they have been waiting longer than they thought they would have to wait for this day, because they are starting to feel the effects of their faith in their daily lives as the people around them respond to them differently, because the urgent sense of expectation that came at the time of their conversion has begun to shift to a more patient and measured—and even difficult—way, Paul here encourages the Thessalonians to be prepared for this day to come by living faithfully every day. He insists that it is on the way and will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night, like labor pains coming upon a pregnant woman, with no way to escape the realities of this changing time and season.

But Paul is certain that the Thessalonians are ready for this sudden day that is to come. They are already living in the light, aware of everything that is emerging around them. They are already awake for the coming of this new day, open to the movement of the Holy Spirit as things shift and change in the world. And they are already equipped with everything they need to approach the fullness of this new day, with the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of the hope of salvation. Ultimately, Paul’s hope for himself, the Thessalonians, and all comes from his confidence that “God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him.”

For us, in our own time and season, separated from Paul’s words by nearly two thousand years and nearly as large a gulf of culture and experience, our preparation and readiness for the day of the Lord is necessarily different from and yet guided by Paul’s encouragement to the Philippians. The day of the Lord seems as distant a possibility as ever, yet Paul’s insistence that it will come as a thief in the night or as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman should still give us pause if we think that it won’t come at all. There is certainly a time ahead when God’s judgment upon individuals, institutions of society and even the church, and our whole world will become clear in that time when God completes the transformation of all things begun in Christ.

But as real as that time promises to be, it isn’t part of our experiences and our lives quite yet. And so we are called to be ready for such a time, to work on getting our house in order, to keep our eyes open for the things ahead, to stay awake and be ready for the things ahead. This preparation is not so much about setting up booby traps or burglar alarms to warn us when the thief approaches in the night but rather more like having the bags packed so we can be ready to head to the hospital when the labor pains begin—and to keep changing the things in that suitcase based on the changing times and seasons of our world. This preparation involves faithful living in our daily lives, the promotion of justice, peace, and righteousness in the broader world, and our attention to the work of salvation being lived out in our lives and our world as we stand with those in need of a new way in their lives. The great St. Augustine, in reflecting on this text, even suggested that our readiness is critical as the day of the Lord comes

So what is this day which the Lord has made? Live good lives, and you will be this day yourselves.

We are not the day of the Lord on our own, but we can be a part of making it real in our world.

As we join in this work of getting ready, we can also be encouraged by the confidence that Paul offers the Thessalonians. We belong to the day, Paul says, and we have everything that we need to keep awake and be ready for the day that is coming. Even more, “God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him.” When we face the challenges of our lives and our world, when the powers and principalities that obstruct God’s reign seem to have the upper hand with God and with us, when pain and hurt that seem to overtake us so easily, God is still with us, giving us everything that we need to be ready for the day of the Lord as it nears us and our world.

The life of faith that we share does not excuse us from the pain of the world or remove the hurt from our lives, and any attempts to write it off as “part of God’s plan” or something that will “work together for the good of those who love God” denies the real challenges of life for those of us who live awaiting the day of the Lord. This pain and suffering, though very real, will not have the last word. Our destiny will not be decided by these things but rather will emerge as a new and different way of life through Jesus Christ, and we can live in confidence and hope, placing our fears and concerns in their right place, trusting that they will not reign but rather than God’s new life will indeed be ours.

So as the seasons change and new times come, as our world emerges into a new and different day, as we wait and work for the transformation of all things, may God strengthen us in hope for this new day ahead so that we may be a part of the day of the Lord as all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord, come quickly! Amen.