Dear Friends in Christ,
We mark the passage of time by noting special events and moments which are packed with meaning. They are different for every person as we move through the various stages of our lives. Unlike the secular world, the church marks each Sunday’s passing throughout the year with a special name and Biblical texts. We move through the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost which reflect a yearly movement through the life of Jesus and the life of the church, and then we do it all over again. Like a stream flowing through time, our Christian lives are a walk with Christ in discipleship.
The pace never varies yet the time can often seem to move either very slowly or quite quickly. Christmas came very fast this year with what seemed like less time to prepare and get ready for the celebration. And now our calendar tells us that we will be starting the year 2020. Each year we are promised the same number of hours that will fill our days with a slight astronomical correction that perhaps some “magi or wise person” might be able to explain to me. But that being the case I know that at some point we all feel that time is going more quickly.
I mentioned this to a parishioner with whom I was visiting once. He had been a high school science teacher. His take on it from a scientific point of view was that our concept of time was like a roll of toilet paper. It contains the same amount of paper but as the roll gets smaller even though it turns at the same rate it seems to turn faster and is used up more quickly. As he explained it to me, it seemed to make sense at the time.
Whatever our perceptions of time might be, we are assured by God that our times rest in God’s hands and we are held secure there all our lives. So whether we feel the movement of time passing quickly or slowly, God continues to “make all things new” through the one whose birth we celebrated once again this Christmas.
May God’s guiding hand lead us into a new year filled with peace, joy and hope.
A blessed New Year in Christ,
Pastor Loren
