Will-Power or Higher Power?

Well, we've reached the beginning of another New Year. Have you made your resolution for 2017? I haven't. In fact, I've kind of given up on the concept of New Year's resolutions. I can't tell you how many times I've started off a brand new year with good intentions of keeping a resolution, only to see that promise wither in the cold of January, February and March.

Perhaps this year, I should be considering a New Year's covenant instead of a New Year's resolution. Here's how my father once explained the difference:

"At this time of year perhaps more than any other our minds turn to promises. As we begin a new year there is a certain psychology built into us that gives us a sense of beginning anew. It's a time when we review our life and see what changes should be affected, what new promises should be made, what old promises renewed. In short, this is the time for a New Year's resolution.

But it always seems to me that there is a certain sadness and human tragedy about the New Year and its resolutions. Many resolutions are made about trivial things, and larger ones often are made tongue-in-cheek, for we know full well that they will not be kept. This is a season for human promises made by human beings, and experience has taught us that human-level promises are very fragile, and vulnerable to many threats, and usually end up broken - if not in fact then at least in spirit. By and large, we find it far easier to make promises than to keep them. 

Fortunately, we worship the One who keeps promises. It is only God who never waivers and keeps his Word. It is only from God that we can receive the will to keep our own promises. The word for 'promise' most often used in the Bible is 'covenant.' Simply stated, the idea of covenant is 'I will be your God, if you will be my people.' It is a reciprocal kind of relationship that God offers us. In spite of the fact that we are often useless and spoiled, God in his infinite grace loves us and wants to give us a whole life. It can be ours if we fulfill our part and respond to God in faith and love. 

Entering into a living, vital covenant relationship with God is in no way like making a New Year's resolution or any other human promise. Such human commitments are like a bankrupt debtor promising to pay all his creditors in full. The sooner we ditch our seeming self-sufficiency the better. A covenant relationship with God is not made by telling God what you will do for him. It is, in utter humility and helplessness, opening yourself up to God and letting him come into your life and make you his man, his woman. 

To follow Christ I am not to say, 'Lord, now I'm going to straighten myself out and be your kind of man; I will follow you anywhere.' No, that's not what I say at all. I say something like this: 'Lord, I've blown it. Right now it seems like I can't do anything right. I've messed up my life and my world. If you can still love me, Lord, if you still want me, I'll cast myself on your mercy.'

And, you know, the most amazing thing happens to the person who does that. Because God has promised to love him no matter what, and because he has accepted that promise, a new grace, a new promise-keeping power floods into his life. Now he daily receives from God the strength and love to make commitments to his family and friends and the world and to carry them through. He discovers that some of God's constancy is in his own life and that he is victorious and trustworthy. You see, our promise-keeping power is a part of God's promise-keeping power. 'Apart from him we an do nothing.'

As we begin the New Year, will you join me in renewing your covenant relationship with God? This is a prayer written by John Wesley, the founder of our Methodist tradition, to be used at the New Year. It is one of the most powerful prayers ever written. An honest praying of this prayer will open your life to a real renovation and renewal by God Almighty ..."

The Wesley Covenant Prayer

"I am no longer my own but thine. Put me to what thou wilt. Rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing. Put me to suffering. Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee. Let me be full. Let me be empty. Let me have all things. Let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal. And now O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thou art mine and I am thine. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen." 

From: "Promises, Promises"

Preached at: Paoli UM Church, Paoli, PA

The Light Still Shines

In the weeks leading up to Christmas this year, there has been a special candle burning in the sanctuary at Newtown United Methodist Church during our Advent worship services. It's the Peace Light. In Bethlehem at the Grotto of the Nativity, the traditional site of the birth of Christ, caretakers keep a flame continuously lit. Every year a boy scout or girl scout from Austria travels to Bethlehem and lights a lamp from the flame. The burning lamp is then flown back to Austria, and its flame is distributed from Vienna to churches across Europe.  

At Christmas in 2001, the Peace Light was flown across the Atlantic Ocean from Vienna to New York City as a sign of hope in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. For many Christmases since 2001, the Peace Light has come to New York and has spread from there across North America. 

This year, our church was offered the Peace Light by a nearby congregation, and I had the experience of driving a flickering lantern to our church and carrying the Peace Light into the sanctuary. It's a safe bet that I will never carry a burning Olympic Torch into a stadium to light the Olympic Flame, but I did do my small part to complete the Peace Light's incredible journey of nearly 5,800 miles from Bethlehem on the West Bank to Newtown, Pennsylvania -- via Vienna and New York City.

The Peace Light burning in our living room

Instead of having the Peace Light burn unattended in an empty sanctuary between Sunday worship services, Dorry and I have looked after the Peace Light in our home. I never experienced having a candle burning in my home 24/7 before. I've learned that a single candle throws a surprising amount of light in the darkness. When I walk into our living room at night and see the Peace Light burning on the mantle of our fireplace, I'm reminded of the Gospel of John's poetic description of Jesus: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. ... In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." -John 1:1, 14, 4-5  (NIV)

My father once observed that "[i]t is always so with light and darkness. No matter how deep and vast the darkness, one tiny light can pierce through it, and the darkness, for all its vastness, is powerless to overcome that light. Darkness is always at the mercy of light."

2016 has been a year in which many of us found ourselves enveloped in darkness from news of terrorism, or war, or mass shootings, or racism, or our hate-filled political rhetoric. These are "dark social and political situations that permeate us from the outside."  At other points in the year, we have been shrouded in "a darkness that comes from within. It is the darkness of hopelessness and despair we feel when we get bogged down in the tragedy and pain and sometimes just plain boredom of everyday life. There is no heavier, seemingly impenetrable darkness than what we feel when life wounds us in one way or another, and we cry out to God, and God doesn't seem to be there. Terrible, terrible things happen in families, in the workplace, in marriages, in the human mind and body. Evil is very much alive in the experience of every one of us, We cannot deny it. Each one of us is to some degree enswathed in the darkness that comes from within."

It was into this darkness -- from without and within -- that Jesus was born. One Christmas Eve, my father asked his congregation, "Can you imagine how cold and dark that stable must have been? That stable is the world. It is no small thing for God to enter that darkness. There are the cries of a young mother in labor, bearing her first child in a strange town far from home. There is the pain of a father's helplessness as he tries to assist at his own child's birth. It is not easy for God to send his Light into our dark world. It costs God much; ultimately, there is a cross." 

This birth -- this arrival of the Light in the midst of darkness -- announces two things we desperately need to hear: "First, God cares. God knows and cares about the darkness that engulfs us. Your personal darkness is unique; it is different than that of every other person in this church. Yet, God knows and cares. This is the first thing we need to hear. Second, God conquers. God's light still shines, and it conquers the darkness. No darkness can stand up to God's light. This is the significance of that little child born to refugee parents on a dark, cold night in a musty stable. What could be a more powerful reminder that God's light still shines than the birth of this beautiful baby in such a dark setting?"

"This child born in a hostile environment among strangers, this child cradled in a cold, dark barn, this child whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, this child tells us precisely -- because of WHO HE IS -- that God's love extends to the most humble person in the most desperate situation. This child is the Light shining in the darkness. This Word can bring joy to the multitudes. This Word can bring joy to you! See this scene of the nativity for what it really means: The Light still shines!" 

Merry Christmas, friends!       

From: "The Light Still Shines"

Scripture: John 1:1-18