Hopes for 2024
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 01/11/24
Which of you have said or heard something akin
to the following in the past month: “2024 had better be better than 2023 was.”
I did! But then 2024 rolled in with Covid (SO MUCH COVID), continued warring
between Israel and Palestine, and all the other struggles that come with life.
Did the New Year forget to let the old one go?
I don’t know about you, but I am notoriously bad at keeping New Year’s Resolutions, which I am convinced we make because we hope that the New Year will be better than the last. I haven’t made them for years, primarily because when I did make them I would inevitably fail to keep them, then feel ashamed that I had failed to keep them, then keep them even less, then feel ashamed for not keeping them, etc. You get the point.
So, instead, I want to ask not what are your New Year’s Resolutions, but rather what are your hopes for this new year? As followers of Christ, our faith and hope for the future are inseparable. The author of Hebrews said succinctly: “Faith is the reality of all that is hoped for; faith is the proof of all that is unseen” (Hebrews 11:1).[1] Christian hope is an expectation for the future God has promised for all of creation, a future where God is fully present, where pain and suffering are no more, and where folx of all kinds live in harmony with one another. But, hope is more than a feeling, it is a lifestyle. It is living each day as if that promised future is here now. It is helping to create that future for God’s beloved creation.
In the 14th century Julian of Norwich, a mystic who lived in seclusion in a tiny cell attached to a church in England, had a vision of Christ while she was thought to be dying. She went on to live multiple decades after that, which she spent reflecting on her vision. She also lived in a challenging time with the bubonic plague, peasant revolts against oppressive powers, and internal strife in the church. And like us, she wrestled with the realities of her world and keeping faith in God. She asked God at one point why there was sin in the world and told God that perhaps it would have been better if “the beginning of sin [had been] prevented.”
Seriously God, with all the ways that humans hurt each other and this creation, could you not have created us a bit nicer? A bit more compassionate? A bit less able and willing to harm others?
Julian records that God’s answer to her was that “sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.”
By sin she meant, “all which is not good.”[2]
There’s a lot to unpack in that vision - certainly more than I can do in this one Thursday’s Thoughts! But, what gets my attention today is her conviction that although sin/suffering/pain/war (they are all part of the same reality) exists, God’s promise is even more real. And although the world contains sin/suffering/pain/war, all will be well.
Friends, as we head further into 2024, what are your hopes for this New Year - hopes for yourself, for this church, for your friends and family, and for this world? Where do you hope the Spirit will move and heal? Where do you hope you will be more fully present to God’s presence?
Live into those hopes each day, trusting that all will, indeed, be well.
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
P.S. - Do you want a fun “fictional” first-person retelling of Julian’s life? Read Claire Gilbert’s “I, Julian: The Fictional Autobiography of Julian of Norwich.” This is the most beautiful book I read last year.
