Words for the Beginning

Star of Bethlehem by Hannah Garrity, A Sanctified Art

I, like many others, have spent time reflecting on 2024 and looking ahead to 2025. It seems to be what we do as we turn the calendar into a new year. We say good-bye (maybe even good riddance) to 2024 and hello to the beginning of 2025.

Perhaps, you, like me, have reflected on what has gone well, what could have gone better, and what next year could and should be. They’re good questions, but as I looked ahead to 2025, I found myself reflecting on how much I don’t know, how much I can’t know, how many unknowns were before me.

And so, I found myself with a new question, what are the truths that I need to ground myself in to move faithfully into a new year filled with unknowns? Put another way, what do I need to be reminded of in order to, no matter what the new year brings, live my faith in this world? Or, put even another way, what are the foundations upon which I want to build my year, so that I’m ready for whatever it might hold?

As part of an answer to those questions, we begin a new sermon series on Sunday, Words for the Beginning. These are the anchoring concepts of a life well-lived before God. You might think of them as essential life lessons, words we need to hear over and over again.

In some sense, they are the simple truths that parents want to tell their children. But even more, they are the words that God wants to tell us, and this world that God so loves. And they are the words that we need to tell each other.

While they might seem simple, somehow, they are the lessons we keep returning to. The lessons we continue to learn and relearn. The lessons we think we’ve mastered, only to need to learn them again.

These words might feel something like steady ground, a path for our feet to find as we move forward into the unknown of a new year. Or perhaps they feel something like a soft whisper in our ears, reminding us of who we are and whose we are.

But above all, I hope these words feel like love.

It is my hope that these words form a foundation for this new year, whatever it might hold. I hope these words wrap themselves around each of us, to comfort, encourage, challenge, transform, and uphold us as we do the work to align ourselves to their truth, with God’s help at every step of the journey.

I hope you’ll join us on Sunday, and throughout this season!

Grace and peace,

Kimmy