“A Star to guide us.”
Do not take down you Christmas decorations just yet! Leave your Christmas tree, the hearts and the stars just a few more days. Because even if we just have entered at New Year, we are still in the Christmas Season. We are still in the 12 days of Christmas that lasts until Three Kings Day, also known as Epiphany. January 6. Helligtrekongers dag in Danish.
Today Sunday January 3 is the first Sunday in 2021, where we greet the New Year 2021 welcome, but today is also the last Sunday of Christmas. Even if most of us already have carried the Christmas Trees out of the living room and stuffed all the decorations for next Christmas, and even if all the Danes among us all have been running through the house and franticly been singing “Nu er det jul igen og Julen varer lige til paaske...../ Now it is Christmas again and Christmas lasts until Easter…”, - the truth is that in our Christian Church tradition, Christmas ends with Epiphany on January 6.
One of Grundtvigs most beloved Christmas hymns is “Dejlig er den himmeblaa/ Bright and glorious is the sky.” We sing about the bright light and the guiding star that was leading the Wise men to the child in the manger, and we sing about that we too have a guiding star in life.
It is such a wonderful hymn, and we will sing some of the many verses after the sermon. We sang it Christmas Eve and we sing it today, as Christmas is not over yet! We still gather in the light of the Star of Bethlehem.
January 6 is the feast of Epiphany or the Three Kings Day/ Helligtrekongersdag. A celebration of the time when God’s glory was revealed in the child in the manger. Like the light of the star that guided the three wise men or the magi to Jesus, “we too have a guiding star” as Grundtvig wrote.
That is why a star is place at the top of our Christmas Trees: the Bethlehem star, the star that guided the three Wise Men and will guide us.
A star to follow.
A light to follow.
A word to follow.
Because in the light from the star, in the light that came into the world, in the word that became flesh, it reflects and reveals, who we are:
It tells us where to be going.
It tells us how and when we should go.
We are Gods children.
We on our Pilgrimage through times and ages, forward and onwards.
We should follow the star and share the good news
We are sent to out to be beacons of the light of Christ, sharing the good news and Gods’ love and salvation of all people.
So, what better way to begin the New year than to be reminded that we too have a star to guide us, we too have a light to shine before us, we too live in the light of the Word and the Light that came into the world.
The light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
Happy New Year!
We need to follow that light, we need to be guide by that star, when we enter this new year with expectation, anxiety, hope, prayers and faith.
We have just left 2020 behind us, even if we still linger in the aftermath of everything that shaped and marked 2020: The Pandemic, the extended lockdown, the virus, the isolation, the hospitalization, the sad passing’s of 340.000, the economic hardship and the political division. Even if we are still dragging our feet in the messiness of 2020, it matters how we begin the new year, how we embrace the hopes of this year, and which guiding star we follow.
There certainly are many features of 2020 that we hope to be leave behind: hidden smiles and facemasks. Tired and worn-out nurses. Empty churches. Closed restaurants and shops. Hoarding of toilet paper. Ugly unemployment numbers. Zoom fatigue: “You’re muted; we can’t hear you.” Filled hospitals and human tragedies. A Political division and confrontational attitude.
But there are numbers of things worth remembering with appreciation: Gutsy and dedicated teachers. Parents and kids bonding over schoolwork. Medical personnel who served selflessly. New respect and understanding for the health vulnerabilities of neighbors. Reduced commute times. Creative cooking. More reading. More walking. More car. More community. More family times.
One unforgettable element of 2020 is GRATITUDE for all who stepped forward to make a difference in this pandemic year: in small acts of kindness, its great gestures of politics or commitment, in hard work and dedication as frontline workers, in family presence, neighbor compassion and community care. For all who brought cheer, relief, help, groceries, companionship, - and for all who tried so hard to maintain dignity, humanity and humility.
Dignity, humanity and humility. These words I would like to bring with us into 2021. Dignity, humanity, and humility.
To be reminded of the motto that is the mottos or our Danish church: “Menneske forst, saa kristen…. Human first, then Christian.” So, let that motto and its dignity, humanity and humility be our guiding star in 2021.
The Danish Author Carsten Jensen published a beautiful and heartbreaking book in 2020 Called: “Øvelser I afsked.” Practices to say goodbuy.
It is about his personal grief when he loses his stepson, and that suddenly to early passing is wise, beautifully and insistently intertwined with the state of the world and especially the state of the climate. Carsten Jensen ends his book with a double commandment almost as a prophetic urgent call: “That we are still here, should fill us with gratitude. That we might soon not be here anymore, should fill us with resolution to act.”
Leaving 2020, this strange, unsettling, challenging and heart-breaking year behind us and stepping into this new year of 2021, could command us to feel the same: that we are still here should fill us with gratitude as so many have died, so many have lost their livelihood and ordinary lives, and that we are still here should not only fill us with gratitude but also with an urgent resolution to act and be present in these days of hours.
The time of New Year is a time of reflections and resolutions. Trying to make sense of what has passed, gives us strength, courage and an intensive urgency to do and act. To do better. To be wiser. To follow that star and that word, that is not a temporary rising star or a temporary modern word, - but is the Star of Bethlehem and the word that came into our world and became flesh, became human, and became meaning.
“And the word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father only son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses: grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen Gd, it is God the only Son, who is close to the Fathers’ heart, who has made him know.”
Truth and grace, grace upon grace… the reflection of God’s own heart.
Beautiful words to believe in. Beautiful words to begin a new year upon. Beautiful words that have become a guiding star for us as Humans first, then Christians.
Our faith and our hope are built upon grace and truth: the truth and grace manifested in the world through the life and being of Jesus Christ, who was the incarnated heart of God among us.
The life and teachings of Christ is our guiding star to live a life in dignity, humanity and humility.
Loving God and our neighbors.
Living with compassion and commitment.
Strengthen and saved by grace, forgiveness and mercy.
And thus, we begin this New year with a prayer:
With an old prayer by St. Francis of Assisi:
"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love.
where there is injury, pardon.
where there is discord, union.
where there is doubt, faith.
where there is despair, hope.
where there is darkness, light.
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console.
to be understood, as to understand.
to be loved, as to love.
for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."
Amen.