The Rev. Canon Mariclair Partee
Intro:
A lot has happened since we last were all at church together. Happy New Year! I hope that you all had a safe and joyous celebration and are enjoying this 10th day of Christmas. You may have noticed our Three Wise Men making their way across the rood screen behind me, headed for the manger and the Christ child within. We have two more days of this most wondrous of seasons, and then the trees come down, the decorations go back into storage, we celebrate Epiphany and the next stop is Ash Wednesday and Lent. So we should relish these two more days of Christmastide, and Epiphany tide that follows.
The office was closed on Friday and so I celebrated the new year by sleeping in, making breakfast, and settling in to read the New York Times with several cups of coffee. This august publication devoted considerable space to the most pressing issue of our new year, and I was surprised that that issue was not related to safe air travel or economic planning or unrest in Iran and other countries, but was apparently what we call this year. Some said Two thousand and ten, others, arguing for brevity, Twenty Ten. Whole articles were devoted to parsing these two options and though I began the day without any particular allegiance I ended my reading of these fiercely persuasive arguments convinced that this might be the hot new issue of our time! Other, lesser, options were proposed: two thousand ten, 2K10, two oh one oh, one neo-Luddite even suggested MMX, pronounced em em ecks, as a tribute to our Roman forebears. Passions ran high and I ultimately decided to leave the fight up to greater linguistic minds than mine as I refilled my coffee cup and realized that no matter what we call it, this New Year is special because it is a New Beginning. Few of us are pining for the year we’ve now left behind, and I think most of us are embracing the possibilities of a brand new year, a fresh start, another chance. In a new year, everything is made new again, old habits can be put aside, disappointments can be forgotten, lessons can be considered learned and steps forward can be taken.
Health clubs and diet emporiums all over the Lehigh Valley are counting on it! This is the time when we make resolutions, forgive ourselves for falling short in the past and pledge to ourselves that we can do better, this will be the year that we get the exercise we know we need, this year we will take time to be with our family and friends regularly, we will stop smoking or will give up self-destructive habits, or we will smarten up our resume and start looking for that new job, or we will be more disciplined in our prayer. We all know that some of these resolutions will be more successful than others, but there is something about this time of year, the flipping over of the calendar to a fresh January, that makes all things seem possible. We have another chance, if only we will take it. We can make a fresh beginning.
I think this was God’s plan as well, when he decided to meet humanity in the form of Jesus in the dark days of winter, to come into our being in the form of a child, to embrace a new beginning with us, his beloved creation. St. Athanasius said, “God became human so that humans might become divine”, and I think we see the correctness of this in our Gospel today.
In our readings today we have parallel messages: we have a STORY-of Jesus’ life-and a PROMISE made to us, right now, in him.
We have the story of Jesus’ life. We’ve heard of his humble birth on Christmas Eve, his parents’ flight to Egypt, and today we jump ahead to his twelfth year, when he visits Jerusalem with his family. He stays behind when the others leave, and it takes his mother and father a day or so to realize his absence. Travel was dangerous in those times and so large groups moved together, safety was in numbers, but it also made it hard to keep track of a boy. When Jesus’ absence was realized his parents returned to the city and searched, we are told, for three days. After four days sick with worry they found him, sitting in the Temple, arguing Torah with rabbis and students. His mother admonishes him and his father probably scolded him and I imagine he pouted a little as he was forced to leave the excitement and head home. And so Jesus is fully human-a boy mischievously running off from his parents, excited by the big city, risking his safety for adventure. But Jesus is also divine-he was in his father’s house, pondering points of law, amazed at his parents’ concern. We hear the story of Jesus growing into manhood, into his role as teacher and leader.
But we also have in these readings a promise: the promise of salvation. In Jesus Christ we are no longer separated form God, we have achieved our full inheritance. Our sins are pardoned, our debts are paid, and all things have been made new again. Happy are those people whose strength is in God, whose hearts are set on the Pilgrim’s Way! For they know what is the hope to which God has called them.
And so, as we start this New Year, let us be fully awake to God’s plan for us, and fully aware of our rebirth in him, through Christ, as heirs of his eternal kingdom. Let us rejoice, and be glad in the Lord, and in the hope that we have been given in him. And may all our resolutions be grounded in God’s love. Amen.
