Moving Forward into a New Year
SCRIPTURE for the DAY – New Year’s Day 2025
Psalm 139: 1-7 & LUKE 24: 13-27
Look around … here we are … gathered together in a church. A church that matters to each of us on the First Day of the Year … perhaps wondering what the new year will be like.
I decided to use the Gospel lesson of the walk towards Emmaus as a reflection on our daily walk because as the calendar’s year changes and as we put Christmas Eve in our collective rearview mirrors … what is our walk like? What is our demeanor? Are we whining and complaining or are we talking about others doing our very best to lift ourselves up by putting others down? What’s our walk like?
Luke reports to us that Cleopas and the other unnamed disciple had faces that were downcast. They were sad … they were miserable and as disciples of Jesus Christ who were aware of His death but not His resurrection, they were fearful for their future. They shared the news of the day, and it wasn’t until Jesus had left them that they figured out who had been with them.
Isn’t that a lot like us. God’s presence is always with us … Jesus Christ has never left us … and the Holy Spirit is a constant and willing guide whom we deflect with ease because we want to join the parade that the world puts before us. And it’s not until we stop walking in our chaotic paths that we finally realize that Jesus has been with us all along.
So, how is your new year beginning … why or how is this day any different than the one before or the next one that awaits its morning dawn? How willing are you to consider the possibilities that are yours as you move forward into the year, we are calling 2025?
Yesterday I received a gut punch reminder of life … a friend whom I hear from perhaps once or twice a year texted me to wish me a Happy New Year. And, then this friend asked, “How’s Megan doing …”
Suddenly the clouds as Megan would say SQWOSE me in a dark enveloping reminder of that cursed day in 2023. Tears that had been lying latent somewhere behind my eyes rained out … dampening my cheeks and I had to answer the inquisitor even debating in the moments to ignore this person’s question as if it had not been asked.
Friends … do you go through hard moments that you want to ignore? Are there days in your past that you want to erase or upcoming days that you want to skip over while knowing that you can’t … they are real … they exist … they are part of your journey?
David’s Psalm of the day begins with a simple truth, “Lord, you have examined me … you know me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up. Even from far away …” and then this reality has always struck me perhaps with concern or maybe with hope because David writes, “Lord … even from far away you comprehend my plans.”
So, I answered my friend’s question with the fact of Megan’s life here being ended but then I shared her legacy once again. How Megan in her life had simple plans … plans to showcase love with everyone she met. To hug people with her bear hugs including people that many of you would step away from because of their stench or because they had AIDS ravaging their poor street walker bodies. I shared how strangers have reached out to us once they discovered who to reach out to … reached out to say that this special woman had shared herself through love with one of their family members.
Yes, I told her story … ending my year with tears but also celebrating that at least one human from my life has showcased the love we are all supposed to have for our neighbors but it’s so easy for us to push God aside isn’t it. It’s so easy to say no to Jesus once the mangers and decorations are boxed in attics, basements, and closets.
That text brought me back into my need to rush to Longwood Gardens to find my treehouse … not the treehouse that one of you took a photo of and sent to me but my treehouse beside the fountains and close to the stream where I find restoration for my bruised and aching soul. That text created a focus again that was reinforced this morning by a dear friend’s text message that began “this reminds me of your philosophy inspired by Psalm 23” … a focus that I believe that we all need as we move forward into a new year.
The quote that was shared with me a few hours ago includes these words “[1]I go and lie down where the work drake rests in his beauty on the water … I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of the still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time, I rest in the grace of the world and am free.”
Ah, to be free. And, that grace of the world … the grace of God … the gift of Jesus Christ who is anxiously attempting to walk beside each and every person to showcase love while bringing the challenge of life choices … well God’s grace is ready for you this New Year’s Day.
I would like to consider 2025 as a year to reset our values … to reset our priorities … to reset our relationship with God, which will then allow us to openly and energetically share God’s love through our love with all of our neighbors. If there is one wish, I could have come true for each of you and for those outside these walls it is to have all of us commit to obeying what the Lord God requires of humans … TO DO JUSTICE.
Isn’t it ironic or reflective of God’s call that the first requirement that the prophet shares is about JUSTICE. JUSTICE, which means caring for the poor … JUSTICE, which means providing equal rights to ALL people not just those who align with the powerful or the loudest bullies … JUSTICE that means protection and love and hugs for yes, even prostitutes still working the streets who have AIDS and use drugs.
The Lord God also requires we humans to LOVE ALL with MERCY. A faithful kind of love. For ALL not just a few … a reflective love that is not hidden from those in our lives who are biased and prejudiced … LOVE ALL with MERCY.
And, then … oh yes then to WALK HUMBLY with our God. Cleopas and the other disciple didn’t quite get that they were walking with God … with Jesus and they were filled with anger, fear, and bias … but this is why I need the still waters … this is why I need my soul’s restoration … restful waters … to find the proper paths because as a new year begins I realize how short life can be and I don’t want to be caught on the outside looking in.
So, what about you? The Lord’s Table is before us. We are imperfect humans … sinners … in need of forgiveness and called to forgive others. I don’t need to hear resolutions of bluster … God is not calling for us to make pretentious promises but God has stated what God expects from we humans … as we move forward God has fulfilled God’s commitment by bringing Jesus to us to teach us how to live and to rescue us from our sins and shortcomings … God offers the Holy Spirit. Are you willing or even interested in choosing God over the world … that is the New Year’s Day challenge … that is your choice as you move forward into the New Year. AMEN