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From the Pastor
From the Pastor
So, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! --2 Corinthians 5:17 NRSV
Have you ever been greeted with the question: “What’s new?” Have you ever answered it with, “I am! I am a new creation in Christ Jesus my Lord!”
This is the reason that we live with a wonderful thing we call hope. Each day in our lives is a new day. It isn’t a warmed up left-over yesterday but a new day that we live in the new creation.
Because God is eternal and engages us moment by moment, we live in the ever transforming, ever creating grace of who God is. It doesn’t happen by the clock but by the life of Christ in us. It is like breathing. Every breath is a new commitment to be alive. Each breath refreshes our lungs and sends life-giving oxygen throughout our bodies. As we breathe, we are in a constant state of renewal.
So, it is with the Spirit of God but even more so, for we know there will be a day when our breathing stops but the renewal that happens in Christ goes on forever. This is the kind of hope that has us. Before we have this hope, it has us.
As we look ahead to the new year, this hope colors everything about us. It tells us that we have a future no matter how young or old we are. For this grace is able to keep us beyond the life of our bodies. The power of having a future is what it does for us today. For we know that the future is only known one day at a time. What we make of today is what our future will be.
When Apostle Paul tells us that we are a new creation, that is not a passive thing. It isn’t something that we sit around with as if its significance is like money in the bank. Rather, this new creation is active in love. Its life is all about being who we are made to be in Christ so that our lives are shaped by who he is. This means that redemption is our way of living. It is not without peace, rather, it is full of peace. It is not perpetual motion but like a river full of grace. Its flow is its life and so we are part of a river following the way of Jesus into the world that so needs hope.
In 2024 a new pastor to us is going to join us in the flow of the river that we are. She will be a new face that fits in beautifully as God guides us into the next years of the expression of our faith in Jesus. She comes to be one of us and to be pastor to all of us. We pray that this partnership in ministry bears the fruit that is God’s will among us!
We pray that in this new year, we can find ways to live more authentically by showing love to those around us. We pray that each of us can give ourselves over to the process of the daily new creation that is our baptismal covenant. Daily we are reminded that we belong to Jesus and so daily we listen for the direction of the Spirit that flows our hearts into the camp of justice that offers love to all those we encounter.
May this be yours and mine in the new year on our way to forever! Happy New Year to all.
-Pastor Dale
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