Reflections on the Passing of the Old Year and the Arrival of the New Year

 

We have five more days of Christmas left, counting today as one of those five days. Today is the Feast of the Circumcision. Sunday will be the Second Sunday after Christmas and Wednesday will be Twelfth Day, the last day of Christmas. Thursday will be the Feast of the Epiphany. Some folks have already taken down their Christmas trees and their Christmas lights. Others will wait until Twelfth Night to take down their Christmas tree. 

Sunday will be our last Sunday to celebrate the birth of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, to hear the Christmas story, to sing Christmas carols and hymns, to welcome the Christ child who will grow to adulthood and bear the terrible weight of the world’s sins for us on a tree, not a Christmas tree covered with decorations and lights but a wooden cross. The opening verse of a song that may have been written as a Christmas carol and which choirs around the world often sing at Christmas time comes to mind, “The tree of life my soul hath seen…..”

Today we began a new year—2021. The year we leave behind revealed some things about us as a nation that we might have cared not to have been brought into the light. For those of us who identify as Christians, it revealed that we do not live in accordance with the teachings and example of the one we call Lord as much as we might like to believe. Rather we are prone to follow too much the devises and desires of our own hearts.

God who sent his only begotten Son into the world that those who believe him in him should not perish but have everlasting life has not left us without hope. Even in these dark days God extends to us his grace, the power of his presence in our lives. God works in us to will and to do his good pleasure. While some who identify themselves as Christians have been selfishly uncaring of their fellow human beings, others have made sacrifices for the health and safety of their communities and have ministered to the needs of those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. They have shown the love for humanity that Jesus showed when he walked the roads and paths of Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem.

The carol to which I alluded earlier is attributed to Richard Hutchins, an eighteenth century Reformed Baptist pastor who at the time that it was published ministered in Long Buckby in Northamptonshire in the United Kingdom. 

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green;

The trees of nature fruitless be,
Compared with Christ the Apple Tree.

His beauty doth all things excel,
By faith I know but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see,
In Jesus Christ the Appletree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought;
I missed of all but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the Appletree.

I'm weary with my former toil -
Here I will sit and rest awhile,

Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the Appletree.

With great delight I’ll make my stay,
There’s none shall fright my soul away;
Among the sons of men I see
There’s none like Christ the Appletree.

I’ll sit and eat this fruit divine,
It cheers my heart like spirit’al wine;
And now this fruit is sweet to me,
That grows on Christ the Appletree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;

Which makes my soul in haste to be

With Jesus Christ the Appletree. 

Open this link in a new tab and take a moment to listen to Elizabeth Poston's choral arrangement of the carol, performed by The Cambridge Singers and conducted by John Rutter.  

May God richly bless you with every blessing in the new year. May he fill your lives to overflowing with an abundance of his grace. May the Holy Spirit strengthen you in your innermost being and fill you with the love of Jesus that you may know the fullness of God.