Christmas, of course, focuses on God, or ‘good’, entering into the world in the person of Jesus. As ‘good tidings’ are declared to all people, it seems as though an extra effort is made at Christmas to embrace the good in all its forms – to do good and be good.
In the New Year, Christmas is quickly forgotten. Everything goes away and our focus turns swiftly to new beginnings and the year ahead. But supermarket shelves have unwittingly kept the good of Christmas alive. The disappearance of Christmas goods has been immediately replaced by rows and rows of Easter eggs. Thus, the good of Christmas lives on as our thoughts are directed from the newborn Jesus, to the resurrected Jesus of Easter.
Jesus’ resurrection reminds us that even when good things seem dead and gone, hope is not lost and good can live again.
As we enter Spring, the earth reminds us of this too. Flowers are not dead, but merely sleep beneath the frosted ground, poised to live again. The sun will return to the mornings and the evening light will stretch out once more. Good, if not seen, is waiting in the wings to fly back with the birds of Spring.
The blessing of Christmas is a country-wide embrace of all that is good. The challenge of the New Year, is keeping all that is good alive.
Whatever your goals or hopes for the New Year, don’t let your intentions for a better year die. Treasure, nurture and nourish them. Keep them alive.
But if they do die, and New Year’s resolutions often do, remember that good can come alive again. Just as certainly as the Christ of Christmas dies, the Christ of Easter lives again.
May you all be blessed in your good service, good hearts and good intentions – to have the strength to keep all that is good alive.
May peace be with you,
Chaplain Jest
‘But now Christ is risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of those who slept. For since by man came death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive’.
‘For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
1 Corinthians 15:20-22, 52-54
