Pastoral Letter:

 “So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!  All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation”                        2 Corinthians 5:17-18     Common English Bible (CEB)

My spiritual director asked me today how I was sharing Christ with the world.  Well, I had a few thoughts about how I was doing that in my work and in my daily encounters with people but, to be quite frank, I think I may have lost track of sharing Christ about mid-December.  When the work started piling up and the deadlines were pending and computers weren’t working right, I lost track of why we celebrate this magnificent season.  We celebrate the coming of God into the world as one of us. And we celebrate ourselves as made new because of that presence of God in the world.  That does not end on Christmas Eve but is just beginning.  So, how are we made new this year?  How do we allow God to guide us toward love and peace and away from fear, hate and despair?  How do we live out our new birth in this year of 2012?

            John Wesley’s understanding of new birth in Christ has to do with what God is doing IN us.  When an infant is born, that child hears and sees in a new way, although we know that hearing and sight is possible in the womb.  But just as the physical birth brings new clarity to the infant, so does our spiritual new birth bring us to new understanding of the world around us. But it goes deeper than just new understanding.  We are called into new life in Christ.  We are no longer living our life alone, with our own mind to guide us, but we put on the mind of Christ and look at the world through the eyes of Christ.  We are fundamentally changed in how we look at things, how we act in the world and how we share God’s love with others.  This is what we celebrate each Christmas and into the New Year.  This new way of being in the world, not based on old hurts and hates but trusting in God’s love and grace for us and in us and working through us.  So, as we begin this New Year, ask God to guide you toward further reconciliation and ask God to show you how to share Christ’s love with those around you.  And ask God to guide you more towards the needs of the world.  For each day, we have a chance to be made new in Christ Jesus. Amen.