From the pastor

January 4, 2004

The girls and I rolled in about 11 p.m. Friday night from our week in southern Florida. When I went on my walk last night, there was no doubt that I was no longer in the tropics. The chilling water soaked through my shoes and socks. The rain splashed into the pockets of my raincoat. And I wondered if the parking lot at the church would be slippery this morning. And I reflected that just three days earlier I was wading in the gulf waters trying not to get sunburned. Life is rich.

This is the weekend of the church ski trip. Richard King reported that 49 people had signed up to go—enough to rent a bus rather than take a car caravan. The group is due back later this afternoon. I’m hoping they had a good time and praying for safe travel for them.

Today is both the first Sunday of the new year and the 10^th day of Christmas. Christmas was apparently NOT celebrated by the earliest Christians. In the first years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, his followers continued to observe traditional Jewish festivals and holy days. They also observed the death and resurrection of Jesus at an Easter vigil during the Jewish Passover. But Christmas doesn’t show up in any historical documents for almost 300 years.

The church first began celebrating the birth and baptism of Jesus in the region of what is now Turkey. The focus was on the baptism of Jesus at first, celebrated January 6. It later became a birth/baptism celebration. In the early fourth century, Roman Christians began to celebrate Christmas on December 25. Thus the eastern and western churches had two competing dates for Christmas.

In time, the western church adapted to a compromise. Christmas would be a season, not just a day. It would begin on December 25 (the date observed in Europe) and extend until January 6 (the date observed in the Near East and Greece). Hence the 12 days of Christmas.

As we flip through the centuries from the early church to John Wesley (18^th century), we note that Wesley seemed intrigued with the potential of New Year’s Day to evoke change and reform in a person’s life. The Methodist movement has always been about change and reform. And New Year’s Day lent itself easily to such Methodist doctrine.

The Methodist movement didn’t originate in order to form an institutional church. It began in order to organize people for reform: to reform the individual, to reform the church, and to reform the society. Something about New Year’s Day inclines folks favorably toward change and reform. We seem unusually predisposed toward resolutions. We attain to better ourselves.

Wesley began a tradition of praying the "Covenant Prayer" at the beginning of the new year. A shortened version of the prayer is in our hymnal, page 607. It is a prayer that roots our resolutions in our relationship with Christ. May God bless us as we continue to rejoice in the birth of Christ—on this 10^th day of Christmas. And may God prosper us in our holy resolutions. Mike