Dear Friends,
So, how was it for you? The New Year I mean. The absence of fireworks on Central Square meant it was something of a damp squib as far as Hampstead Garden Suburb was concerned. It also ‘proved’ that the otherwise large congregation that usually attended ‘Watchnight’ had, to say the least, mixed motives. Anyway, to my mind it was fitting that the turning of the year was marked by our expressing our ongoing prayerful concern for each other and for the world. But what of the year ahead? What is there to look forward to in 2022? It is all too easy to fall into the trap of trying to micro manage the future. To plot one’s course from January to December via a carefully designed pathway littered with this, that and the other event, circumstance, situation, or happening. It may be that if the last two years have taught us anything at all it is that all we have to look forward to in 2022 is 2022 itself. January 6th, 12th night, otherwise known as ‘The Feast of the Epiphany’, to celebrate the visit of the Magi – the Wise Men – to Bethlehem to see Jesus. ‘A Light for the Gentiles’, for ‘…the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. On those who live in a land as dark as death a light has dawned…’ [Isaiah 9, verse 2]. (12th night: because tradition has it that it took them 12 days to travel from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to complete their journey). More generally, an epiphany is understood as a revelation, a realisation, a ‘light-bulb’ moment. Before something can be seen for what it is, it has to be ‘lit’, ‘…There is no figure more common in scripture, and none more beautiful, than that by which Christ is likened unto light. Incomprehensible in its nature, itself the first visible, and that by which all things are seen, light represents to us Christ. Whose generation none can declare, but Who must shine upon us ere we can know aught aright, whether of things Divine or humans…’ [James Joyce]. For the Christian, the coming of Christ is history’s light bulb moment. The ‘moment’ according to which everything that there is can be ‘seen’ for what it really is. Not for nothing is the most significant period of western intellectual history referred to as the ‘age of Enlightenment.’ As John remarks concerning the coming of Christ, ‘In Him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind’. [John 1 verse 4]. And so it might just be that the best way to approach a New Year is not to try and plot a course for ourselves, but rather to ask God through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Risen Christ to light the way for us. In so doing we echo the words of the Psalmist, ‘…Your Word is a lamp to my feet, a light on my path…’ {Psalm 119, verse 105]. We may not know where we are going, but at least then we can see where we are going. To my mind that is as good a metaphor for understanding how to approach the New Year as any. Having said all of which, for football fans all over the world, all roads lead to Qatar in November where and when the next World Cup is to be played. But for us, closer to home? We can do no more than commend all that 2022 will contain to God, daring to believe that wherever we find ourselves, God would have got there ahead of us…