Butterflies and Hot Tea

This article first appeared in the January 2011 issue of HHPC’s The Connecting Link.

It’s time to flip the calendar page over once again. Actually, every time you receive this newsletter in the mail, or in your email inbox, it is about time to flip a calendar page over – from month to month. But this time is a little bit different, as it is just about every twelve months. This time, more is changing than just the day or the month. This time, the year is changing. Do you remember when the year 2000 seemed a long way in the future? And here it is, twelve years after “a long way in the future”.

What is it about a new calendar year that makes everything feel – well, new? What is it about getting used to writing 2012 instead of 2011 that makes everything feel so different? Are we really that much different on January 1 than we were on December 31?

Perhaps it is the letdown after Christmas – the sigh of relief knowing that everything that needed to get done actually got done; the sigh of contentment as we savor memories of parties, gift-exchanges, meals, time spent with family and friends; the sigh of resignation as things get “back to normal”; the sigh of determination as we begin to stare New Years’ resolutions in the face. Perhaps that is what makes us feel a little bit different, a little bit changed, a little bit more “2012”, and perhaps even a little bit older.

As a new year begins, however, the sense of “new-ness” that we feel is often, ironically, combined with a sense of “same-ness”. After all, January always follows December, and February follows January, etc., etc. It was this way last year, it is this way this year, and it will be this way next year. In many ways, we have been here before. The challenge of a new year is sometimes the challenge of somehow making it new, making ourselves new. Thus, January 1 is a great time to set goals, to order or re-order our lives (or at least try to!), to think about priorities, and to make resolutions. What will we do better this year than last year? What will we do differently? What will we do that we didn’t do last year? What will we leave out this year?

As followers of Christ, however, the turn of the calendar page can have some added meaning. We have just finished celebrating the birth of Christ. In addition, a full understanding of Advent has left us not only anticipating the birth of Christ, but looking with renewed longing and hope for the promise of Christ’s coming again, and a new heavens and new earth. We have welcomed the Prince of Peace.

And we realize, surely with a sigh of relief, that though we always strive to better ourselves – to be better people, better friends, better followers of Christ – it is not we who make ourselves new. It is Christ who makes us new. It is God’s forgiveness, the Holy Spirit’s work in us, which makes us grow. This is what gives us the hope, the fortitude, and the ability to strive in the first place. This is what makes it possible for the new year to truly be new, because the hope in Christ that we have makes us new, on January 1 and every other day. Happy New Year! See you in church Sunday.

In Joyful Anticipation,

Pastor Lara

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