The already and the not yet

Something that struck me about Christmas this year is the truth of what we are celebrating. It is not a holiday only about the past; it is a holiday also about the future. It is a marking of our defiant hope as Christians despite the odds, and a statement of our trust in God, God's promises and God's faithfulness to us to do what God says God will do.

In short, it is about looking back at God's faithfulness through the generations that culminated in God coming to us as a baby to spur us on in hope that Jesus is coming again to settle all things finally, to bring us peace, to set injustices aright. He is coming again to let us finally live as we were created to, face to face with our God. Christmas is about the already and the not yet.

Which is a lot of what the New Year feels about, too. Especially at the beginning of a new decade, as we look back at what God has done for us during the past 10 years and dream with God about the next 10. As during Christmas, we are awaiting and celebrating the second coming of our Lord. We are the ones who keep watch, who hold this event as holy, revere it as sacred. We are the ones who hope, even though it's been nearly 2,000 years and maybe seems impossible. We are the ones who wait, the lamps of our hearts lit for when our bridegroom comes.

We are part of a long lineage of people who pass on this hope, who pass on this small little burning flame, candle to candle through the generations.

As we hope during this New Year, let's hope wholeheartedly, as Psalm 27 encourages us to do: "Hope in him, hold firm and take heart. Hope in the Lord!" And let us be encouraged by 2 Chronicles 15:12 and 15 (NAB), in which the Israelites renew their faithfulness to God: "They entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul. All Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn with their whole heart and sought him with complete desire, so that he was present to them. And the LORD gave them rest on every side." We, too, can seek God with all our heart and soul, for when we do this, he promises to be found.

January seems like a month for waiting, or maybe a month for simply being. It is quiet. It is still. It is cold, when even the earth is frozen and not yet quite yearning towards spring. In the stillness and pause, it seems to say: be. Hold it. Sit with what you are and what you have in this moment. Learn to love it, this lovely little place and your lovely little self, all incomplete and asking. It encourages us in endurance, presses us on in hope, asks us to hear and be with Jesus as he says I am coming, yes, and I am also already here.