The nature of our secular calendar imbues Jan. 1 with a profound sense of newness and change. Our culture has shaped that newness and change into rituals around goal setting and “New Year’s resolutions.” In my own life, a little over a decade ago, I began a personal tradition of choosing a guiding word for the upcoming year based on where I felt a need to grow or a desire to focus attention.
Meanwhile, in our liturgical calendar, the birth of Christ has just occurred, and the world has been changed forever. In our gospel Scripture for today (Luke 2:15–21), the shepherds who have been told about Jesus by a host of angels make their way to the place where he was born in order to see him for themselves. They come away astonished and transformed, unable to keep the experience to themselves.
I know that people often have strong feelings about New Year’s, and it focuses on change. Some folks get very invested, while others eschew it with an eye roll. My relationship with change is complex. I crave novelty and get excited about making plans and embarking on new adventures. On the other hand, I struggle with unexpected upheaval or transitions I have no say in or control over.
Right now, my family is in a difficult season. We sit at the precipice of significant changes and transitions on multiple fronts — most of them not of our choosing. And I am realizing that I struggle most with that in-between time, when we know things will unfold, but we don’t know how or when. I am not a fan of waiting on the unknown.
As a Christian, January follows a season of intentional waiting during Advent. Christ has come, the world is being made new, and we can move forward in faith. As a Christian contending with life in this messy, complicated world, it sometimes feels like the waiting and not-knowing never end. In this current liminal time for my family, I feel the pull to try and make big changes, and I recognize that it’s an attempt to seize some control in the face of so many situations where I have very little control.
There is nothing wrong with us figuring out where we have power and doing what we can to make the most out of our situations. But I wonder, sometimes, what we overlook when we intentionally divert our attention to whatever new project gives us a sense of agency. What do we miss when we rush from the precipice and turn from what is beyond us?
The shepherds did, ultimately, make a choice to go see Jesus. They had agency. But they also chose to confront a future that would change them in ways they could never have predicted, let alone control. On some level, they must have trusted that God was at work, and seeing how that holy work would unfold was worth the discomfort of uncertainty.
We know, indeed, that God was at work then in an incredible way, and we know that God is at work in the world even now in ways we sometimes glimpse but can often only guess at. How might this year open differently for us if we resolve to receive the movement of God rather than rushing to make our own moves? What if we orient our agency around a desire to follow faithfully where the Spirit pulls us, instead of clinging to a path of our own carefully curated vision? Perhaps we will find Christ there. Perhaps it will change everything.
Rev. Layton Williams Berkes, Communications Strategist
Let us join in prayer for:
Monique Robinson, Manager, Treasury Office and Central Receiving Office, Administrative Services Group
Keenan Rodgers, Church Consultant, Engagement & Church Relations, The Board of Pensions
Let us pray:
God of all time and place, thank you for being with us wherever we find ourselves. Thank you for being at work in Christ and in and around us. Give us patience to trust in your unfolding grace. Give us courage to receive and be transformed by it. Give us wisdom to share it with the world in whatever ways the path ahead allows. Amen.
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