New Year Quotation

A NEW YEAR QUOTATION

(Preached 2 January 2000)

Well, we have made it!

The millennium bug has not got us, even if the flu bug has got some of us!

After the service here yesterday on New Year's Day - which was very well attended - and after the Bring & Share lunch in St. Michael's Room, I finally got round to reading in the newspaper about the millennium celebrations of the night before .

In particular, my attention was caught and my imagination was kindled, by a double-page spread headed "Quotes of the Century".

There was John F. Kennedy's well-known words from his Inaugural Address of 1961:

"And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country".

There was also Winston Churchill's famous speech in the House of Commons in 1945, in which he said:

"Never in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many to so few" - referring to the pilots of the Battle of Britain.

And, of course, there was that famous quotation of Mae West, in the 1930's film - 'I'm no Angel':

"It is not the men in my life that count. It's the life in my men".

And this got me thinking. Of all the speeches made by Jesus, which one would I choose to call to mind at the beginning of a New Year?

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A New Year full of appointments and challenges.

If only we knew what this New Year had in store for us!

There is a certain degree of euphoria about today, as we step forward into a New Year, a new century, indeed a new millennium.

But both you and I know that the euphoria of today will soon be replaced by the reality of tomorrow, as the shepherds discovered when they returned to their fields after paying their homage to the Christ child.

Sooner or later, we have to come down to earth and face the reality of the world in which we live.

And because we cannot see into the dark unfathomable mystery of the future, there is a degree of fear as we take our first tentative steps into the unknown.

There is the fear of unemployment where more and more people are obliged to work on short-term contracts. Will the contract be extended? What will happen to the mortgage repayments if it is not? Will we be able to maintain the same standard of living? Will I have to wait long before I find a similar job?

Then there is the fear of old age. I may be reasonably healthy at the present but what of the future? Will my aches and pains get worse? I may be mobile and able to look after myself now, but will I be as mobile in a year's time? Will I still be able to look after myself or will I need residential care? Will my children give me the necessary support to

enable me to maintain my present independence?

Then there is the fear of death itself. Not so much my death, but the death of someone near and dear. Will I be able to give them the necessary nursing care they both need and deserve? And when they are no more, will I be able to cope with the emptiness they leave behind in my life? We know that death must come to us all, sooner or later, but

the longer we live, the sooner it is likely to come, but will I be ready for it?

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Oh dear, I do sound rather morbid at the beginning of a new year, a new century and a new millennium.

The point is that it is natural to be fearful of the unknown future. We all have our dreams about the future, but we also have our fears about the future. Fears, which we are often reluctant to acknowledge, save in the quietness of our hearts when we are alone.

But Christians are not alone. Our lives are lived in the presence of the unseen God who was made visible in the person of Jesus Christ, and who after his resurrection, and before he left his disciples, said:

"I am with you always, even to the end of time".

Yes, that would be a suitable quotation from the words of Jesus for us to bear in mind as we start a New Year.

That would be a suitable quotation, not just for the past century, nor for the post-millennium, but one that has stood the test of time in the lives of those who are his followers for over 2,000 years, and which I believe will stand the test of time for another 1,000 years.

A quotation which reminds us that we are never alone, no matter what befalls us in the present. He is there to support us, to encourage us and to give us strength in good times and in bad. He will not desert us, though we may desert him when things go well. He is there to hear our crying, to hold us in his ever-open arms and to feed us, and never

more so than in the Holy Eucharist.

"I am with you always even to the end of time".

Yes, that quotation of Jesus will remain long after the quotations of Kennedy, Churchill and even Mae West are forgotten, because it continues to ring true in the lives of those who are his followers.