Daily Devotion - Tuesday, December 29, 2015

This week for our Daily Devotions, we'll be focusing on the coming of a new year, and what it means to be given a fresh start, a second chance and another opportunity to become the people that God has always dreamed for us to become.   

"And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been." - Rainer Maria Rilke

You have never experienced next year.  Next year is full of days that have never been, that do not yet exist--at least in our understanding of reality and existence.  Even the "you" that exists in next year does not yet exist, sort of. 

Over the course of next year you will change and grow in ways that you cannot yet imagine.  Your very cells will be completely renewed next year, as impossible as that sounds. There will be people you'll meet next year that you do not yet know, and cannot fathom how knowing them will transform your life. 

Next year is, as the German poet Rilke asserts, "Full of things that have never been."  

But for those of us who follow Jesus, we have something certain in the midst of all of that uncertainty.  We have in our corner the One who is called the "Alpha and the Omega" in the Scriptures, "the beginning and the end."  

The Gospel of John describes Jesus as the creative, expressive Word of God who was present at the beginning of all things and was responsible for Creation itself.  

"In the beginning was the Word," John writes, "and the Word was with God and the Word was God."  He goes on to say, "All things were made through [the Word]. There is not anything that has been made that hasn't been made through [the Word].  

This same Word, who we know is Jesus, (the very Son of God, the Divine in human form) told his disciples something incredible.  He told them, "I will never leave or forsake you," and he also told them, "I will be with you always, even to the end of all things."  

So what does this mean for you and me?  What does it mean for us on the threshold of a new year of things that have never been?  Well, it means that Jesus is not only with us, He is already present in that not-yet reality, a reality that owes it's very existence to Jesus, the creative, expressive Word.  

In other words, you don't have to fear tomorrow.  Jesus is already there.  Jesus already prepared a place for you.  Jesus is with you always through whatever the new year has to offer whether it be glorious or challenging.  

May you be full of courage as you face the not-yet of tomorrow.  May you be filled with the very Spirit of God in Christ as you realize His presence all around you.  May you learn to trust that the one who has brought you to the edge of this not-yet, will see you through it until the shall-be.  

And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.