HOPE in FRONT of US
Numbers 6: 22-27
GALATIANS 4: 4-7
JANUARY 1st 2022 A NEW YEAR BEGINS
Friends, it is New Year’s Day in the year of our Lord … wait a second. I want you to consider whether you are willing to call 2022 the year of our Lord because that phrase has been commonly used since medieval times to define the collective groups of 52 weeks comprising 7 days each or rather 365 days’ Anno Domini. Do you agree with me that it is time we meant it?
If we are willing to implement this year as a year of the Lord then I can assure you that hope is in front of us because frankly the past is the past and for much of the last several years good riddance to the events, commentary, and expectations we have come to know.
If you want specifics, the original phrase for in the year of our Lord is Anno Domini nostril Jesu Christi. So, let’s get some Jesus into this because we are Christians after all … Christians who have made an active decision to follow Jesus because we have taken the lesson of the manger incorporating that awesome pageantry with the history of the man named Jesus to determine He is God’s gift to humanity to ALL of humanity erasing the concept of any one human group being better than another or more accepted by God than another. Through Jesus’ life we saw Him with the Samaritan woman whom all the pious religious authorities insisted should never be allowed. He stopped the adulterous woman from being stoned even though those self-empowered religious quote experts insisted that their rocks should bring her down. Jesus hung out with the most despised individuals in society and then Paul clarified it all for us by stating that God’s love is not just for the Jewish faithful but for ALL thus clarifying that when the Old Testament demanded that people of faith love ALL it meant ALL … when Jesus declared that the two commandments people of faith need for their life he did not select two from Moses’ tablets he stated love GOD and love ALL your neighbors.
So, it is truly up to you and to me whether we make this a HAPPY ANNO DOMINI NOSTRIL JESU CHRISTI or not! If you and I and every other person who self identifies as Christian chose to follow Jesus … to obey Jesus … to love Jesus and to love God … then we would be striving to pull us all together for the good of humanity and because that is what God expects of us … and my brothers and sisters in Christ that is why I am here today to challenge myself and you to implement 2022 as a year when hope is in front of us and the sharing of hope is our responsibility for all of our neighbors whoever they are!
Paul teaches us not to look backwards …
“Brothers and sisters, I myself don’t think I’ve reached it, but I do this one thing: I forget about the things behind me and reach out for the things ahead of me. 14 The goal I pursue is the prize of God’s upward call in Christ Jesus.”
And, here we are on New Year’s Day 2022 and we have some important decisions to make.
Are you ready to change for the purpose of pursuing God’s call in Christ Jesus? Our reading this morning from Galatians reminded us there we do not have to be a slave to the world because the Christmas gift of God was given to us so that we can again be adopted by God into God’s family pushing aside the world’s revelations and the world’s dictates and the world’s evil so that we can be an heir to the Kingdom of God through Jesus Christ.
Paul provides us with an interesting perspective of God’s love for us when we come back to our faith walk … when we are redeemed. We have heard elsewhere in Scripture about the heavenly celebrations when one person comes back to God but today in the letter to the Galatians we heard what God’s Holy Spirit shouts out when the Spirit comes into our lives … ABBA FATHER! Abba Father; loving God …. Caring parent and awesome God!
From the very beginning of time God has wanted to showcase God’s love to all people. God we heard from the Torah in Numbers wants to bless us and protect us. God wants to shine God’s face on us and be gracious to us. God wants us focused in on God so that we can have peace and be blessed.
We cannot change anything we did or said or posed in the year 2021. 2021 is now one for the history books but we can and need to consider who we are as we move forward into 2022.
Who are you aligning yourself with for today, tomorrow, this year and the rest of your life? Are you tired and worn down by your attempts to play the world’s games so that you can fit in with the screamers, the self empowered, and the one’s who choose to divide and conquer? Or, coming out of Christmas are you like me desperate for hope … searching for peace … needing an all encompassing love that forgives and embraces us? God the Creator … God the giver of the Christmas gift of Jesus … God who created every single human being in God’s Holy Image not to create divisions but to create unity through love regardless of our differences.
I am hoping that today is a new beginning for each of us. That we will focus together on how we can share love and value worshiping God more than occasionally but with a fervor that shows the world we live in that we truly love God; celebrate God’s love for us; and are ready to be the ones who shine God’s light of hope, peace, love, and assurance into the paths we walk through out this year and beyond!
HAPPY ANNO DOMINI NOSTRIL JESU CHRISTI!!! Together let’s raise our voices to insure that this is truly THE YEAR of the LORD 2022 through our love for our neighbors and our love for God!
AMEN