Don’t remember the prior things;
don’t ponder ancient history.
Look! I’m doing a new thing;
now it sprouts up; don’t you recognize it?
I’m making a way in the desert,
paths in the wilderness.
( Isaiah 43: 18-19, Common English Bible)
The story continues…
These two verses from Isaiah keep calling to me from different places on these first days of 2022. I used them for a New Year’s Day blog post, they are basis for our New Beginnings Messy Church session and last Sunday, they were read as a scripture focus for the day’s sermon.
We have been in the wilderness for two years as the entire world has been turned upside down from a virus that cannot be seen except for under a microscope. I have read blogs from friends this last week from friends and colleagues sharing that tired, overwhelmed and are facing a new year not with anticipation but with a sense of dread. What will 2022 bring? I enjoyed the cartoon by Sandra Boynton where her famous cartoon hippopotamus is hiding under the bed.
The preacher on Sunday, acknowledged that she too was tired and was struggling to find something shiny and ‘new’ to share with the congregation. She then shared her former experience as a librarian and her insight that perhaps we can find hope when we approach a new year not as a brand-new book but rather as a new chapter in the ongoing story of how God’s love is present and revealed in new ways into our lives and our world. (Sermon by Napthali Renshaw, Wesley United Methodist, January 2, 2022)
My friends, my prayer for us all, as we step into this new chapter /year is that we will place our hope in God’s love which makes a way in the desert and paths in the wilderness. May we trust that God is already doing something new in our lives. May our eyes by opened to recognize Jesus the Christ in our ordinary and sometimes messy lives. May we also reach out to help others on the way!
Prayer
Loving God, guide us as we step, either boldly or gently, into this New Year.
Open us to see your unceasing love as it is revealed throughout the days of 2022.
In the name of Jesus the Christ, through the companionship of the Spirt we pray. AMEN
