Dear Faith Family,
Well, we made it! It is the first day of the new year. And so it is time to turn the calendar for 2024 is officially here!
And yet, as is often the case, the calendar's turning is no guarantee that change is coming or for good. Indeed, many wondrous and beautiful things in the year behind us were worth celebrating and praising. Still, we cannot deny that there has also been loss, sickness, strife, and all the ills plaguing our human condition. I suspect the same can be said for many past years and will be repeated in years ahead.
So what are we to do? Well, as this year's prophetic Advent stories encouraged, rather than judge the past and predict the future by the tally of wins and losses, we are to be caught up in "a living hope." We are to make our lives through peace amid the mixture of praises and laments—knowing that at the turn of each year, of each day truly, we awake afresh into the certainty of sin and death's final days. We are, in the end, 's beginning, to give ourselves in joy because we are loved.
So, with humble confidence and empowered courage, we can ring out the old that is passing away and ring in the new that will be forever.
And so, that is what we will do, ring out the old and ring in the new! And will do so through what has become a tradition for our faith family, praying together this poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. A poem that can be prayed over and over until the new that is Christ in us, through us, and for us and neighbor is all that is left.
Love you, faith family! Happy New Year and God bless.