Although New Year’s Day has come and gone for 2012, I am sure I will be writing the year as 2011 for some time to come.
I have always been grateful that the Church begins the new year with “Advent Season” (pre-Christmas) on the Christian Calendar, something I don’t talk about much, because most people have forgotten that fact, if they ever knew it.
This means I can make a whole set of resolutions for the new year and not have to tell anyone… By the time the secular calandar’s New Year’s Day (Jan. 1) comes about, I can pick up my former resolutions out of the ashes, and begin anew with another set — given I will have undoubtably failed at those undertaken only weeks before.
Thankfully, accountants often close their books for the year mid-way through, so I claim that time as another opportunity to take up fallen resolutions. By November, and Advent, of this year, I will need to refresh and start again with my attempts to perfect myself into the image “I”— or those I am trying to please — think I need to fulfill … The cycle continues, if I allow myself to think in such short-sighted terms.
As people of God, we are fortunate that our relationship with Christ is not determined in days or moments, but through the eyes of eternity.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
God has known us before we were born, and we have been under His sight and in His presence, and shall be, forever. In Him there is no time or space, but eternity.
In Christ we are made new creations, and our destiny is bound up in God’s glory, not our failures or short comings. Every moment is a transforming moment lived in Christ. We do not need to wait for a particular date or day in time to intend to live into the process of “being good.”
As people of God we are being renewed, and living anew, every moment through Christ who dwells within us… That is, until the consummation of time, as we know it, when we step into that heavenly country, and into the embrace of that peace which passes all understanding.
Let us begin this moment, this time, not some time off in the future, not when we “feel” it is right, but now, to live into that fullness that our “resolutions” can never give to us, but which comes when we are “resolved” to be Christ’s own forever…
• • •
The Rev. Walter Van Zandt Windsor is rector at Trinity Episcopal Church.
• • •
Editor’s note: Pastors or associate pastors interested in writing for this section may submit articles to pbcnews@pbcommercial.com. Please include your phone number and the name and location of your church or ministry.