“O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature.”

These words from this week’s Collect seem most appropriate as we live into the Christmas season but also as we begin a new year. There is a sense in which the Christian faith is the story of new beginnings. God begins creation; through His will God initiates life. Mankind evolves into this magnificent thinking being, full of potential, and yet in an eternal struggle, seems to desire to debase and defame that magnificence. And God begins anew; God initiates the supreme act of redemption, God sends His son, Jesus the Christ. And mankind is giving a new beginning, an opportunity to allow the magnificence of our being to soar toward God, full of new hopes, new dreams, and new life. God has wonderfully created and yet more wonderfully restored the magnificence of our being.

We, by the grace of God, have an opportunity to begin anew, to shape and form our lives in a way that praises God and fulfills our being. We are not locked into the past, no matter how glorious our accomplishments nor how disgusting our destructive moments. The son of God has come amongst us and the Father says to us through the Son, offers to us through the Son, that today is the day we begin anew. It is the time we restore aching relationships, it is the time to give of ourselves in healthier and more meaningful ways; it is the time to caress all of society’s children that their hopes might be renewed and that their hearts know and feel the significance of a loving embrace; it is a time to say to those whose lives we touch that you are loved; it is a time to lift up those who are hurting or fearful or grieving. We as people of God are called to the realization that every moment is a significant moment, every moment offers us an opportunity for a new beginning, every moment offers us an opportunity to touch someone’s life, a touch that in itself, by the grace of God, might restore their hopes, their dreams, their faith, their life.

Despite the present coronavirus, we live in a time still filled with opportunities. If we fail to grasp these opportunities, we injure not only ourselves but the lives of those whom we might have touched in various ways and by that touch enhanced their lives. God wonderfully offers new beginnings in all aspects of our lives; I pray to God we will be open to them in all the moments of our lives.

Amen