Thursday, December 31, 2020 (today’s lectionary)
The Seventh Day of Christmas
New Year’s Eve
In this last hour
Children! It is the last hour.
Again the fireworks, again the ball falls in Times Square. Around the world in every time zone, it is the last hour. Found in a downtown Austin shop window, “Can’t you speed up the countdown? We’ve had enough of 2020!”
But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge, and you know the truth.
Even John Shea, brilliant professor and theologian, inveterate optimist, bearer of hope and lover of Christmas, struggles to carry on. Ron Rolheiser quotes his friend’s poem in his own New Year post …
It happens when we least expect it.
When we wake in the night
with the worries of the day.
When we mask a child
too young to have her face unseen.
When we ache to see people
but fear to invite them.
When we touch a forehead
and hope it is not hot.
Sometimes comfort comes,
arriving as grace
into exhaustion.
It must be a mistake,
nothing has changed,
Dare we allow it in?
Are the angels of Bethlehem
still wandering the world,
trumpets uplifted,
visiting us with Christmas news?
“There is One among you who brings peace.”
Jesus is that one among us who brings peace. But he does not commune with our false selves. With eyes flashing, he leads us into peace with righteous justice and endless compassion. Jesus arrives in his own true self and insists we brings ours too. And we can do this. This is not a problem when we choose to live a life of praise.
Sing to the Lord a new song, sing and bless his name. Announce his salvation day by day by day. Let the plains be joyful, and all that is within them. All the trees of the forest clap their hands because the Lord comes, as he comes to rule the earth. Alleluia, alleluia! The Word of God has become flesh and dwells among us.
The problem comes when I choose a life of pushing and punishment, rather than praise. Not punishing others but myself, not pushing others but myself. When I refuse to relax, eat well, drink enough water, or even sleep, my life slips away even as I struggle to hold on.
What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Every morning God gives me a free lesson. Choose life, David. Fall down on your knees and let yourself be loved. On the last day of 2020, at the last hour, begin again. This is all for you.
He has given us the power to become children of God, born not only by human choice and generation but by God. Then we will see his glory, full of grace and truth.
And, oh yeah, this is not just for a few of us. Can you imagine a vast plain filled with every person who ever lived, anywhere at all in the universe? Can you even begin to imagine that? Those are the ones God loves. Everything he has, he gives for every one of Us.
From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace, grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the only-begotten Son has revealed Him.
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