Christians might consider another way
New Year's Day Sermon, Archbishop Claude Miller
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger ...
As I think of the New Year that is upon us, the twelve months that lie ahead, it is difficult not to look back. In looking back over the past twelve months we are reminded of the disastrous year it has been: the earthquake and aftermath in Haiti, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the mining disaster in Chile, the recent flooding in some parts of our province and on the brighter side the Winter Olympics and the gold medals.
As we look back, most of the note worthy events were unexpected and beyond our imagination and control. Our tiny personal resolutions and good intentions for the New Year seemed to vanish and give way to other things. The realities of life were much bigger than our resolve to exercise more, give up smoking, go on a diet. or be more attentive to our relationship with one another, with God and our Church. Even though a new year is with us our suspicion is that the new year will be much the same as last and “I’m just a little older” says our cynical side.
The Gospel that we just proclaimed is not just a recalling of the events of the past year, but a recalling of an event that took place 2000 years ago. A most significant event that has had a profound effect on the history of humankind until this very day. The story of God coming into the world in the person Jesus, born to Mary and Joseph so long ago, and told in 2011, is as significant as it was 2000 years ago, or it should be.
The angels announced “Behold I bring Good Tidings of great joy. When the shepherds made known what had been told to them about this child; ...all who heard were amazed. There was much joy and amazement at this news on that day two thousand years ago. What of today? Is Jesus born anew in the hearts of the believer or is Christmas simply a commemoration of an historic event? I suspect for a great many, given the cultural attitude of the present day, that the latter is the case.
As I said on Christmas Day: Our worship and our work like the shepherds is the joyful task of telling the Good News to others. Isaiah reminded us that the messenger who received him and believed in his name, who announces peace and brings good news, have received power to become children of God. Power to become children of God.
St. Paul speaks to the Galatians as to the benefits of becoming children of God: “... when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.
God’s Spirit enabling the hearts of those who have become children so that we might see God as Father, so that we are no longer a slave to the world under the law, but children and heirs to a more glorious Kingdom, the kingdom of God.
God entered this world as a Child, not as a grown up with intellectual maturity and worldly wisdom, but a child. God’s work of redemption was wrought by angels speaking to the trusting childlike heart of Mary and Joseph, and the shepherds.
God’s redeeming work challenges his Church to reflect his love in a needy world. Today is the “new day” that begins the New Year and we are called to respond to the Good News yet again. If our response is simply to see the new year of our life and faith as a repeat of last year’s resolve to change, being swallowed up by the unpredictability of life, then there is little to look forward to.
On the other hand, we can look to the new year with big plans and expecting great success by the work of our hands: like, promotions, power, personal wealth, more knowledge and more wisdom. Saint James in his letter warns against such thinking: Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4.13-15)
As Christians we can enter the New Year with a cynical or arrogant attitude, or we might consider another way.
The evangelical preacher Charles Swindoll says “The longer I live the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company . . . a church . . . a home.”
Individually or corporately in our personal lives and in our Church our attitude will have a great deal to do with how our new year is remembered this time next year. There is much to look forward to if we respond to the challenges of life and set our hopes and expectations for the new year with childlike faith seeking God’s kingdom instead of the kingdoms of this world.
When we seek God’s kingdom first, God’s expectations become our expectations. God’s agenda for the world takes the focus off of us and calls us to discern what God desires. As James rightly reminds us “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.”
An attitude of humility, rightly placed, will enable our resolve for the new year to honor God and his work in an unpredictable reality... Again the letter of James reminds us: “do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, “God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? ....“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4.5-6)
Pride enslaves us and sets itself in opposition to God’s kingdom. A childlike heart of humility drives out pride and sets the believer free.
As we ponder the new year, what we need, of course, is not another resolution, but a revolution. We need an attitude change in our lives. Looking forward to Epiphany as we begin this new year, we like the wise men of old, need to catch a glimpse of a guiding light, and we need to follow that light, not to a new year, but to a New Life in Christ. As we thank God for the past year and look forward to 2011, we give him all glory and praise.
After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Jesus who died on the cross that we might live the life God intended for us, not just in the new year but forever.
AMEN.
Archbishop Claude Miller is Metropolitan of Canada and Bishop of Fredericton and preached the New Year's Day sermon at Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton.
