The new year
is always a good time to stop, look around, and evaluate what’s going on in our
lives. The new year is a new start to the calendar; so it’s natural that we want
to make new starts in our lives, too. “What’s good about my life?” we ask
ourselves; as well as “What’s not so good about my life?” Those questions set
the foundation for the infamous new year’s resolutions that many of us make (and
that most of us break). “What’s good about my life?” you ask. You might answer,
“I love to take walks in nature, and I haven’t done much of it lately.” Great;
I resolve to do more of that this year. “What’s not so good?” you wonder. Oops,
you look in the mirror and see that you need to lose a few pounds; so you
resolve to exercise more. And if you’re lucky, you can pair what you love to do
with what you need to do! Taking
those hikes that you love is, fortunately, a good way to exercise and get rid
of a few extra pounds.
This kind of
“stop, look around, and evaluate” is a good thing to do for our spiritual lives,
too, as well as for our physical and emotional lives. John Wesley, the founder
of the Methodist church, was famous for asking his friends, “How is it with
your soul?” Let’s imagine that he asked you that question right now? What would
your answer be? Is your soul full of light; or do you feel like you’re
stumbling around in the dark? Is your soul full of life; or are you feeling
dead as a doornail? Those answers will affect whether you get out of bed
looking forward to each new day; or whether you would rather stay in bed and
pull the covers over your head. So, “How is it with your soul?” Regardless of
what your answer is, you can improve the condition of your soul by allowing the
Light to shine in. I don’t mean physical light (although light energizes many
of us); I mean the light of Christ; the light that was with God in the
beginning and is still shining right now; the light that no darkness can
extinguish. That’s what churches are supposed to be all about. Congregations
are groups of people who gather to help one another find the light of Christ
and to welcome it into their lives.
Sounds
great; but how do we do that? In order for the light of Christ to shine into our
lives, we need to make sure that we open the drapes that sometimes hide our
souls so that we don’t block out that light. We open those drapes through
prayer, meditation, and Bible study. We open the drapes by gathering regularly
for worship on Sunday morning (and on other times when worship is scheduled). We
even open the drapes when we share fellowship with other Christians, people we
can honestly talk with about the struggles that we experience in our lives. Sometimes it
may seem like we’re not letting much light in at all; but you might be
surprised at how much difference even that little bit of light can make in your
life!
Light, after
all, is what allows us to see what’s really happening, not only around us, but
within us, too. One of the most important questions that we all must answer in
our lives, “Who am I?” is a question that we can only answer if we are looking
at ourselves with the light of Christ. He will help us to see what is really
there. If you want to make a new year’s resolution that I guarantee will make a
change in your life, resolve to take a good look at yourself in the light of
Christ. While I don’t know the details of what you’ll discover – that’s between
you and God – I know in general terms what will happen. You’ll see your abilities
in a new light. You’ll discover new gifts that you never knew you had. You’ll
be able to accept some parts of yourself that you never really liked. The light
of Christ will illuminate even the darkest, most neglected corners of your
life; and you might find out that what is lurking there isn’t so scary, after
all. You might even find out that the answer to the question “Who am I?” is
“I’m a beloved child of God; and if God wants me to change, it’s only so that I
can have a richer, fuller life, free from doubt and fear and envy.” That’s what
the light of Christ can do in our lives!
But it
doesn’t stop there. Christ doesn’t only shine his light on us so that we can
discover who we really are; he shines his light around us to show us what we
are called to do for him. The light of Christ is like the ocean tide: first it
sweeps in, then it sweeps out. When it sweeps in, it invites us to take a good
look at who we really are. Those are the times when we concentrate on
ourselves, and try to be the complete human beings that God wants us to be. But
then the light sweeps out again, inviting us to go out into the world and be
lights ourselves. Christ wants us to learn from him first; and then to be like
him to others. The story is told of a man who saw all the hurt and pain of the world,
and cried out to God, “The world is so broken! Why don’t you send somebody to
fix it?” God answered: “I did send somebody. I sent you.”
Moving
inward to understand ourselves better and to recommit ourselves to Christ; and
moving outward to be the light of Christ in the world. As the old song says
about “love and marriage” that “go together like a horse and carriage,” you
can’t have one without the other. If we try to concentrate only on ourselves,
we risk becoming hermits, isolated from the world and caring only about our own
well-being. But if we concentrate only on our mission work, we risk becoming
burned out and resentful of what Christ asks us to do. The light moves in and
out in an endless cycle of illumination and discovery, sometimes both at the
same time! Many people have discovered a vital part of ourselves in the midst
of working for the good of others.
This
morning, as a new year begins, I pray that the light of Christ will help you
discover that you are a beloved child of God with many God-given gifts and
graces. I pray that the light of Christ will guide you outside yourself by
illuminating something that you can do to help heal this broken world that God
loves so much and that Christ came to save. And as you see the light of Christ
shining, I pray that you decide to become lights yourselves! What a marvelous
beginning to the new year that would be!
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