Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Happy New Year and blessings in the certain hope of Jesus Christ our Lord!
New Year celebrations are always filled with hope. There is hope this would be the year to keep the resolutions that are so easily forgotten! Hope this would be the year to learn a new skill. Hope this would be the year to save a few extra
dollars. Hope this would be the year to travel a little. Hope this would be the year to lose those pesky extra pounds. This year, there is the added hope that the virus will subside, and vaccines will be effective. God willing, it will be so!
In short, there is an uncertain hope the new year will be better than the old.
We may keep some of those resolutions, others not. The virus may subside, or not. There will always be new resolutions to keep, new diseases to overcome. Something as simple as a New Year’s resolution or as difficult as overcoming a
disease can be beyond our ability—how much more difficult it is for us to keep God’s command to love others! If our hope is in ourselves or other worldly things, it is only a matter of time before that hope leaves us disappointed and put to shame.
Yet God has given us a certain hope that each new day will be better than the old.
God makes us new each day, with the promise that his love is always with us through the power of the Holy Spirit. We have a hope that does not put us to shame! As St. Paul writes in Romans 5:5-6:
“Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”
Christ came to forgive sinners like us! The people who struggle just to keep even a simple New Year’s resolution! And this, as the old hymn goes, gives us “hope for years to come.”
1 O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home:
2 Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
3 Before the hills in order stood
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
4 A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
5 Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Soon bears us all away;
We fly forgotten as a dream
Dies at the op’ning day.
6 O god, our help in ages past,
Out hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last
And our eternal home!
LSB 733 “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”
In Christ,
Vicar Stein