Clergy from left, Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired; Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Assistant Rector Lynn Finnegan and Pastor Deb Church. Courtesy photograph
By Reverend Lynn Finnegan
The Episcopal Church of the Holy Religion
Santa Fe
My husband, the statistician, instructed me on the event of my fortieth birthday, “It’s solely as a result of we stay in a base 10 society that that is such an enormous deal.” Whereas he won’t have gained very many factors along with his spouse who was then lamenting the passage of time, he was, after all, proper.
A lot of our considering, reactions, and feelings are managed by socially accepted norms and traditions, comparable to “40” (or “20”, “60”, and so on.) being a “BIG” birthday, whereas, say 41 or 62, not a lot.
The identical holds true for New 12 months’s Day. Jan. 1, in actuality, isn’t any totally different than the 2nd or the third , besides that now we have 1) accepted a calendar designating it the start of a brand new yr; and a pair of) adopted celebrations and traditions to mark it. With the beginning of a brand new yr we are able to’t assist however hope for a greater and brighter future, irrespective of how horrible the earlier yr has been. And that’s a very good factor. We want festivities just like the change of 1 calendar yr to a different to create rhythms in our lives and convey contemporary hopes and expectations.
For a lot of heading into a brand new yr, hope comes within the type of resolutions. Shed pounds. Get organized. Run a marathon. For others, hope comes within the type of a want for an upcoming occasion.
Discover a soulmate. Get that promotion. Trip in Hawaii. Now I’m guessing you’ve gotten seen the statistics on how many people truly preserve our New 12 months’s resolutions, or, at yr’s finish, even keep in mind what they had been. And the want for a future taking place is normally past our management – it was simply two quick years in the past the pandemic turned our world the other way up and all hopes for 2020 went out the window.
Resolutions and hopes and desires is usually a good factor. We will embrace new experiences and be motivated to make significant modifications. When resolutions are damaged, expectations unmet, and desires shattered, nevertheless, we frequently are left feeling upset, discouraged and even depressed.
The hope Christianity presents, although, is a unique form of hope. It isn’t wishful considering, or blind optimism, and even the careless assertion all the pieces will likely be okay in heaven. It doesn’t have a sunshiny Pollyanna angle. It doesn’t come naturally, even to probably the most religious.
What Christian hope presents is a deep and highly effective sense of belief and peace. As an alternative of relying on outward circumstances, it is dependent upon religion within the character and individual of a loving God. As Holocaust survivor Corrie Ten Growth wrote, “There isn’t any pit so deep that God shouldn’t be deeper nonetheless.”
Hope wrestles with despair however by no means lets despair have the final phrase. “All the pieces that’s finished in the world,” Martin Luther King Jr. as soon as stated, “is finished by hope.” Christian hope can also be an act of defiant resistance.
The sunshine of Christ shines within the darkness, and the darkness can’t, and won’t, overcome it.
Wishing you a New 12 months stuffed with pleasure, love, religion, peace, and sure, hope.
Editor’s observe: ‘All Shall Be Nicely’ is a semi-monthly column written by native girls clergy (pastors and deacons) together with, ELCA Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, M.Div., retired (czoebidd@gmail.com); Nicolé Ferry, Pastor, Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church (pastornicole@bethluth.com); Lynn Finnegan, Assistant Rector, The Episcopal Church of the Holy Religion, Santa Fe (rev.lynn@holyfaithchurchsf.org) and Deb Church, Pastor, White Rock Presbyterian Church (pastor@wrpchurch.com).