New Beginning

We think about time in a very interesting way; it begins at one particular point and ends somewhere but imagine it to be lined like a line or a thread. We describe our life using it by saying that there was a beginning and there will be an end—that is, right now we are on that linear progression somewhere. In this sense, when a person dies unexpectedly we say that her life was cut short in the same way we would talk about a thread being cut short.

We think of each year as a short segment of that long line, called life. In this spirit we ask each other what New Year’s resolutions are. Many take the countdown to the New Year seriously in hope that something better will await them in the coming year. In this way we think that January 1 offers us a new beginning.

Lives of people are thought much the same way. That is, at birth, we celebrate the beginning of life filled with hope and future. Each liturgical year begins by reciting the story of Jesus birth on Christmas and followed by his ritual at the Temple as we heard from Luke’s passage today. Next week, we will be celebrating Epiphany—traditional celebration of Jesus’ baptism. Birth, circumcision and Baptism were symbols of new life. In Christianity Baptism is accepted as the beginning of new life in Christ.

However, what we understand might not always be the only way of understanding. Let me explain. Life is not a linear progression of events nicely arranged like a necklace made of beads of same sizes and colors. They are more like collection of events which collide into our lives. Life resembles more like random collisions forcing us off into new directions than following a neatly drawn line.

Even the story of God’s chosen people is all about how they kept on going in a different direction than God intended them. Like a comet hurtling in space, they continually were pulled closer into those gigantic stars and planets than following a nice path that was laid out for them.

Scientists are good and figuring out patterns in our world. They bring out with amazing accuracies the laws of nature. They might find a pattern that explains a mystery after many hours of efforts only to be confounded by many exceptions and deeper mysteries. It is never ending chase of an answer that always eludes to be the final answer that they have been seeking.

Here we are; we read the Bible as if it is confined within the beginning and ending. Yet, Jesus is declared not as the content that fills the space between the beginning and end, but as the very alpha and omega at the same time—the beginning and end as well as the source of life for what fills the in-between. We want to read this morning story as something that begins at the very beginning of Jesus’ physical life. What we end up reading is not only that he was the beginning, end, but also that which is the way, the life and the truth.

Life is dotted with new beginnings. Sometimes, new beginnings rush in all at once from all directions. They are everywhere and nowhere. The wise sees and works through them; the fools try to make manage them on their own terms. The loving ones know where to find them; the selfish ones search with little success.

Everything that Jesus was from his birth even just to his presence in the Temple on the eighth day signified new beginnings for those who waited, received and saw in faith and nothing for those who had their own worldview and refused to trust and rely on God.

Everything we read from Luke 2 about what Simeon and Anna said about Jesus means nothing if we do not read it in faith, hope and love of God and neighbour. Simeon’s and Anna’s praise mean nothing to those who cannot see not only God’s offer of new beginning, but also the new beginning for the creation. In this new beginning, love became the prime source for all that is life and living. All experiences and encounters to love others in ways that God loved us in Christ have become ways to new beginnings for those who offer and those who accept.

That is, those who love see how life begins again anew; experience how life takes hold even in places of death; become part of life that rises above despair; and give one’s own life to bring about life of faith, hope and love. Love that was received and gave each of us new beginning releases us to life of loving God and neighbours.

To love God, we cease every moment as way of bringing new beginnings to all that God has created in ways that fulfills the creative intent for each life and thing. Loving neighbour is to receive each moment of encounter with my neighbour as sharing of and pointing to the life that fulfils one’s life’s purpose in a new way of faith, hope and love. Simeon and Anna pointed the way. They found their new beginnings in their encounter with the baby Jesus.

We in faith, hope and love came to our new beginnings in Christ. Now we clumsily, awkwardly and imperfectly offer and share the body of Christ that is tattered, broken, rejected and made up of us to our neighbours as sign and seal of that baby Jesus who was, is and shall be the new beginning for anyone who has courage to find the way, the truth and life.

On this New Year’s Day, may we humbly come to know that unlike our thoughts and understanding of what life and time ought to be, new beginnings God reveals to each and everyone are everywhere present at every turn of life as love, hope and faith.