Message: Something Old, Something New
Where have you been? What have you been up to?
Look closely at what has challenged you this year?
Disappointments? Struggles? Hurts? Hopes? Opportunities? Gifts/Blessings? Surprises?
Reflect upon where you have noticed God in the middle of it all.
Wonder where God is meeting you and inviting you to move.
Each year, we have one day where we go from the old year into the new year. For many New Year is a time of resolving to do something, be something, accomplish something.
Have you ever made New Year’s resolutions?
Have you kept them?
Most people quit their New Year’s resolutions on the 2nd Friday of January. Sobering thought that the hope and determination of the new year wears off once life gets back to a bit of normality.
What are you bringing with you in the new days ahead of you? Ahead of us as the church?
I hate to tell you that the phrase New Year, New You is problematic. The calendar may change but it is the same you that comes and the attitudes and habits come with you too. We may do new things or have new things, but some of the old comes with us along the way. As the days march onwards, we bring old things with us and some of them serve us and others hinder us as we go into the newness and go together.
However, you can choose to take steps to be ready for whatever may come by working with who you are, who we are, and preparing for what God is working in our midst.
Have you been praying for the transformation of your heart?
Have you been praying for the transformation of our church?
Have you been praying for your ministers? Your elders?
Have you been praying for each other and how we interact and relate to each other as we seek to be the Body of Christ?
We have made some changes this past year. We are not the same as we were when 2024 started and I know in a year’s time that things will have changed a bit more, maybe not as drastically but change is happening all the time, and we are all learning and growing together as we go along.
Anna and Simeon were not spring chickens. They had seen a lot in life. They had been through a lot and still they waited and prayed for God’s love to be embodied in the world in the Messiah. And they were ready when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple.
Their hearts were ready, their senses were ready to greet their Saviour who would spend about 30 years growing up, which meant that Anna and Simeon never saw Jesus fulfil the prophecies of the centuries before. John the Baptist, a man born just before Jesus, did not see the day of Jesus’s resurrection this side of heaven. John still proclaimed the Good News of the ‘One who was coming to save.’
Anna and Simeon rejoiced in what they knew God would do even though they may not have seen the fullness of it.
The young and old meeting together and working together for God’s kingdom.
As we journey through together bringing all that has gone before, letting go of that which will not serve and help us into our tomorrows we remember we are called to live TODAY and the moments we are given each day as people who have encountered the Christ child, like Anna and Simeon, like John the Baptist, like the shepherds and wise ones, like Mary and Joseph, like the disciples, and all the others who seek to walk in the WAY.
We journey from these days in the days God has for us together, may we be awake and aware of who God is calling us to be, where God is calling us to serve, and to whom God is challenging us to love. May we carry from the time before only what serves God’s purposes for us and let go of what may hinder our flourishing together. May we cherish the gifts of those who have gone before and strive to share God’s love and Jesus’s Way with those who will come after us. May we sing together, serve together, pray together, laugh together, mourn together, and grow together as we journey along Christ’s Way in Spirit and in Truth.
‘Today’ by Fred Pratt Green
Where does our salvation Start?
Where else but here in the human heart!
We need not wait until all is proved before we know we are known and loved.
The door is open, the table spread:
Come unto me the Saviour said.
Lord, we come! Like those of old some slow to follow,
some overbold, today’s disciples,
our service flawed by sins and faults, by tasks ignored.
The door is open, the table spread:
You are my friends, the Saviour said.
We, Your Church, confess our blame:
We let survival become our aim.
The times are hard, the tide is out;
We feed the hungry on crusts of doubt.
The door is open, the table spread:
Where is your faith? The Saviour said.
Lord, we come, your people still;
Renew us in spirit to do your will,
To feed the hungry and end the strife
That makes a hell of our common life.
The door is open, the table spread:
Love one another, the Saviour said.