“To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”  – Ecclesiastes

Dearly Beloved,

With 2024 now behind us, we’re entering a milestone year—2025—a number which tells us we’re a quarter of the way through this century.  Will 2025 prove to be notable for other reasons?  As always, predictions vary widely, and it always seems easier to project negative trends than it is to predict positive ones.  As a new administration takes over the West Wing we can surely expect some turbulence, but how much and in what areas of our common life?  Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and quantum computing tools will roll out at an increasingly rapid pace, making life either significantly easier to cope with or exponentially more difficult to manage, depending on one’s point of view.  Climate challenges, human-on-human violence—these will all be in the mix.

Most certainly, life in 2025 will bring new highs and lows to our individual journeys and the human journey.  So we pray: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  In all of this, what role will faith play for us? The quotation below from James Kay has become a centering one for me in recent years:

“If the future were not the promise of Jesus Christ but the predictable outcome of present trends, despair would overwhelm us,” writes Kay.  But the message we cling to as people of faith is that “we can never take our own projections more seriously than God’s promises.”

All manner of things—good, bad, and in between—will unfold for us in 2025.  To weather it all, we must remind ourselves—and each other—that we are companioned by a Lord who will not leave or forsake us.  Yes, we put our trust in the crucified and risen One, who will accompany us come hell or highwater, all the way through the alley!

Last month I joined my five brothers at the home of eldest brother Peter and his wife Gabrielle in Southern California.  In recent months, cancerous melanoma has spread to Peter’s lungs and brain, and he’s receiving treatment.  We traveled there to share our love and support with Peter directly.  In the days just prior to the trip, the Santa Ana Winds blew fiercely, as they are wont to do this time of year, forcing hot desert air down into the L.A. basin.  These winds can reach speeds of up to 80mph and are particularly dangerous during fire season—which, during this dry year, has extended into winter.  On the plane ride down to L.A. I read about a fire in the mountains above Malibu that, egged on by the Santa Ana winds, threatened to blow up. Those mountains were visible from Peter’s home.  I wondered what I would encounter when the plane landed.

Low and behold, by the time the plane touched down the winds had ceased, the sky was blue, and the worst seemed to have passed.  As my brother Joel and I took the exit for Peter’s neighborhood, we could see the huge column of smoke and orange flames on the ridge not 10 miles away.  But, blessedly, the absence of wind meant the fire danger had lessened considerably.  And by the next morning a cool, moist marine layer had moved in, making the fire much more manageable for firefighters and less likely to derail our plans.

On our final afternoon together we gathered around the kitchen table in Peter and Gabrielle’s home for an improvised liturgy bookended by two psalms: Psalm 133 (“Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity…”) and Psalm 121 (“I lift my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?  My help comes from the LORD, make of heaven and earth.”)  These pithy Psalms of Ascent—were sung by pilgrims as they made their way from their hometowns up to Jerusalem for various festivals.  I like to imagine Jesus learning them by heart as he traveled with his parents during his growing up years.  The time we brothers shared was precious, “like the oil running down upon the beard of Aaron…like the dew of Hermon falling on the maintains of Zion”; not only because of the many stories which were invoked and shared, but because we experienced a power greater than ourselves surrounding and holding us close: the LORD “who neither slumbers nor sleeps…who keeps our going out and coming in from this time on and forevermore.”  After the AMEN, we stood and sang in unison, as only brothers can, a stanza of the hymn we had sung 40 years earlier during Peter and Gabrielle’s wedding:

Joyful, joyful we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of love!

Hearts unfold like flowers before thee, praising thee, their sun above.

Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, drive the gloom of doubt away.

Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day!

For everything there is a season.  And for us who hold Jesus, crucified and risen, as our Lodestar, each season, whatever its content, is laden with hope.  Not a hope based on optimism in human abilities or achievements but a hope invested in him whom death itself could not hold captive.  As this new year begins it is with Jesus Christ that we plant our stake in the ground.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik