Thanks and Trust

Happy New Year.

I know that there are only a limited number of themes that fit with the first Sunday of a new year - resolutions, new beginnings, looking back, looking ahead...but I still think that there is value in having a series of annual 'signposts' that help keep us pointing in the right direction.

When we were looking at Leviticus during the autumn we saw that within Israel's year there were a range of festivals that were designed to give them a break from 'normal' life, to pause and to reflect and to think about what their God had already done for them and what he had promised he would do for them in the future.

The first Sunday of a new year can be one of those signposts - an opportunity to look back at the year just gone, and to look ahead to the year to come.

This morning at CBC that's what we did. We looked back with thankfulness and we looked ahead putting our trust in God.

As I look back into 2015 there were things that happened that I was not expecting this time last year - some difficult times - but  times when I experienced the presence and love of God. Events that give me confidence for the future, because God is faithful. He walked with me throughout a difficult 2015 and he has promised to walk with us in 2016 whatever this coming year holds.

The words that we used this morning on the candle 'wrapper' came from a poem written by Minnie Louise Haskins and famously quoted by King George VI in his Christmas address of 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Here are the words of the first verse:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” 

And he replied: 

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” 

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.