Resting in the Light of the New Year

“O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.”  These are beautiful words that encourage us to take some time beneath life’s crushing load and hear the angels sing. It is a song that invites us to rest awhile and free ourselves from the slow, painful steps that keep us from enjoying the quiet, mystical, and surprising nature of God.  “O rest…” the carol implores,  “…Rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.” 

 

As I write this post,  it is still two weeks before the Christ child is born. It is a busy time for most of us and we keep ‘toiling along the climbing way’, trying to get everything done so that Christmas can finally arrive into the hectic world we've created for ourselves. This portion of my personal favorite carol, acknowledges how easy it is for us to miss the miracle of Christmas. The carol asks of us, “have we stopped long enough to hear the angels sing?” 

At the time of this writing, I am still waiting to hear the angels sing. Still my spirit longs for something different, a future where the burdens of the past year can be forgotten and we can, once again,  gaze into the light of new beginnings.  Within a week of Christmas night is New Year’s Eve – the threshold of a future pure and bright and it is ours to have and to experience. How will your New Year begin? What kind of choices will you make? Will you make time to ‘rest beside the road and hear the angels sing?’ Or will you just slip back into the painful steps, toiling along the climbing way? How can you begin the New Year with real joy, real possibility, and real hope? 

 It is no mistake that within days of holiday cheer, the Christian Church recognizes the baptism of Jesus and the voice of God proclaiming to all the world, “This is my Son, the Beloved with whom I am well pleased!”  It is easy for us to compartmentalize the baptism of Jesus as a Jesus story and disconnect this act of grace as something that happened only to Jesus. Indeed, it is a historical fact andt three of the gospels witnessed to this event in their writings about Jesus. Yes, you can do this, but this would be a bad decision because the story of Jesus’ baptism is not just about Jesus, it is about us. Embracing the story as our own story ought to be the first best choice we make in the New Year. Yes, Jesus is the beloved child of God, but so are we. Yes, God is most pleased with Jesus, but God is most pleased with us too. The water of baptism has many meanings and we could explore all kinds of possibilities, but most importantly, the water of baptism is about resting long enough to feel God’s presence in our lives. The water of baptism is about promises made, promises lived, and promises that secure our future as God’s favorite child. The water of baptism is about resting beside the weary road and listening to the angels sing. 

As we begin this New Year, there will be changes in our life and life together. Some of the changes will be within our control, but many will not. Regardless to the kind of changes that confront us in the coming year, we must have a faith that can endure the changing landscape of our spiritual interior. Claiming the water of baptism as living water will give us the strength to step into the future with confidence, hope, possibility, and joy in spite of  ‘life’s crushing load’. This is a time to rest beside the weary road and make an important faith decision that begins, not with the New Year, but rather begins with the baptism of Jesus. This is the time to hear the angels sing. Let me end this post with the final verse from the carol that began my my post. The poet, Edmund Sears writes:

“For lo! The days are hastening on, by prophets bards foretold.

When with the ever encircling year comes round the age of gold.

When peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling,

And the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.”

At year's end, the angels would like to sing the song that we are writing. I hope you will rest long enough beside the weary road and write your verse for all the angels to sing. Time hastens on, years come and go and there is still much work to do.  May you work diligently to write the song that is the story of your own personal faith, and may you also find time to rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.