The wise men arrived, the crib is packed away, deconstructed Christmas trees litter the occasional nature strip and the last carol has been sung. In the midst of the Christmas period we celebrated New Year and it may feel as though the cycle of death and tragedy continued. The burdens that we put down for a few days over Christmas need to be picked up, although they may feel a little lighter, and life continues.
For some, Christmas joy is stored away with the baubles and wrapping paper. For others, a sense of joy, peace and goodwill continues in the midst of the credit card bills arriving and as the house returns to its pre-Christmas state. For many people thoughts may be turning to what the New Year will bring. There can be a sense of hope about the thought of all the unwritten days ahead; perhaps a change in life circumstance is on the horizon, perhaps we have little people starting school, or older people experiencing a new life stage. I’ve always appreciated that story about a person who doesn’t want to go to school and the mother who says ‘well, you have too because you’re the principal’! I wonder if there is a little of that person in all of us too, sometimes we may feel as though we just don’t want to …
Thomas Moore in
A Life At Work (2008) writes about the experience of work as being a mixture of vision, intention and care. ‘Monks around the world,’ he observes, 'spend their precious time growing crops and cleaning toilets. The difference is that through their intention they turn their toil into a form of human prayer. They are participating in the unfolding of humanity as they fix a squeaky door and milk the cows’. Perhaps thinking about our work – in whatever shape that takes – as a form of human prayer might help bring a sparkle of light and energy with us into this beginning year.
I suspect this is one of the challenges of adulthood – to accept the ongoing invitation of walking with joy. As our understanding of the complexity of life deepens we realise that there can be no birth without pain, no growth without struggle, no achievement without work, no grief without happiness. And perhaps that’s why we can’t keep thinking of a little helpless babe in the crib. We need to allow that baby to grow into the Lord and saviour that we believe him to be. Just as we have the invitation to grow into the joy-filled people we could be – people who, because of Jesus, truly believe that God is working in the world and that God’s presence makes a difference.
On a liturgical level, we have moved into a short period of ‘Ordinary’ time – offering an opportunity for us to walk with Jesus and his disciples as a pattern for our daily lives as we engage in an ordered account of the life work of Jesus through the lens of Mark’s gospel. There is a grace in knowing that Jesus is present to us in the complications, the order or routine of our daily lives.
So, blessed with the knowledge that our Ordinary Time is graced by God – may we move joyfully into 2018 proclaiming with confidence the good news of great joy that a saviour has been born to us and he is, Christ, the Lord.
x
Cathy Jenkins