All Things New
While the world is looking toward the holidays we are looking toward the holy days. While the world is looking at the end of the year we are starting a new one.
December marks the beginning of the new creation. The birth of Christ ushered in a new covenant that God had promised long before and kept. Through the Christ who came we are made a new creation as well. The new covenant God made with us through Christ means that our sins are wiped clean as his gift, not as a result of our goodness. Being made righteous in God’s sight we are holy. The season that we celebrate this first advent of Christ is for us holy days.
December also marks the beginning of the new church year since it begins with the season of anticipating the first advent.
But is it really new for us? Are we going to go through the motions of the holy days so they become nothing more than holidays? Are we going to celebrate anew the birth of Christ only to revert back to the same old sinful self with all the same old habits and hang-ups? Are we going to let the season become for us just an interruption to our secular pursuits instead of letting the Spirit of Christ permanently replace those pursuits?
In other words, will you join the world that looks only to holidays but not holy days and don’t see anything new happening until January 1? We did not choose Christ, he chose us and set us apart to be different from the world, and to make the world different. I invite and encourage you to take extra time this season, not for shopping and decoration but for meditation on God’s Word.
You’ll do the former anyway, but do the latter even more. I invite you to view the days ahead as indeed holy. I challenge you to let God’s Word and prayer set you apart so that you may experience God working in you something new. Don’t let the season of Christ’s birth leave you unchanged.
So that the Word may work new things in your life… I will send you…
A new schedule of lessons begins November 29, the first Sunday in Advent. I am also making available a new schedule of daily personal readings that you will take through one chapter each day. These are designed to cut, fold and make bookmarks for each day of the week except Sunday. Let me know if you have trouble receiving them. Copies can be made from a hard copy here in the office.
Happy New Year and Holy Christmas!
Pastor Tom
