January 1, 2012 - Father Mark D. Stuart

May I speak in the Name of God Who is: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

So here we are again, another New Year’s Day, another year about to start. Some New Year’s may be memorable, others forgettable. Remember the turn of the millennium when we all anxiously awaited the stroke of midnight at which time we were told all the computers would suddenly shut down and all global infrastructure, financial institutions, and communications would immediately cease?! Of course, nothing happened and that scare has to go down in history as one of the biggest scams of mass hysteria in modern times. Now they will be worrying us all year with the Mayan end of days 2012 prophecy… we’ll see.

Occasionally I wonder about the nature of time, how we count the seconds, minutes, hours, days… Since earliest civilization humankind has marked time to order life. Why do we consider a new day starting at midnight when the Jews considered it starting at sunset? What happens to the hour we adjust at daylight savings time… where does it go or where does it come from? And what about the news this week that the government of Samoa decided to move its time west of the International Date Line; on midnight Thursday it suddenly became Saturday – so, where did Friday go?! Time as we know it, is a human invention and probably only exists as a reality in the mind of God, for “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Time is but a wink within the existence of God given on loan to a fading universe.

A strange phrase: “time to spare,” as though time were a commodity to be accumulated. All that ever seems to happen with it is that it flits past and we are only left with our memories… once we were young, our partners were young, and friends were young, once our children were young… Maybe many of those we love the most have left this earthly realm, now young and joyful forever in the land of light… and yet here we still are, trying to make sense of it all as we must confront another new year. When he was my age, my grandfather passed from a massive coronary. When he was my age, I thought my father was pretty old. Now in one of my more recent confrontations with age, the last parish I served as Interim, St. Augustine’s Santa Monica called a new Rector young enough to be my son, having been born the year I graduated from college. Oh well, “time marches on” as they say, like a ruthless army that shows no mercy. “It is time to seek the Lord.” That surely is the most crucial use of time. Our time on this planet is but a speck in eternity; it is quickly gone. Yet to seek after the Lord of this universe and find Him is to gain an eternity of endless time.

In contrast to civil observances of the New Year, some Christians seek to dedicate their observance to a more spiritual emphasis and understanding of the occasion. If secular culture has adopted the Christian Feast of Christmas, the Church has sought to claim the secular feast of New Year and then christen it as its own. Since all time really begins and ends with God, the faithful place the New Year under God’s dominion, since to God belongs all time. In the Catholic tradition New Year’s Day is celebrated as the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God; in the Anglican tradition it is celebrated as the Feast of the Holy Name. Both observances find justification in our Gospel Lesson appointed for today.

A new year is always a time when we are prone to consider new beginnings. Some people make New Year’s resolutions or make new plans or maybe even embark on a new adventure. I am happy to say I have experienced success with both of those endeavors in past years. Some people depending on the circumstances or their personalities approach new things with anxiety, others with enthusiasm. New things in our lives can certainly be compared to birth, something Jesus did with Nicodemus when he told him that one must be born again to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In the mystery of motherhood is the mystery of bringing forth and nurturing new life. As Mother of the Church, Mary’s role in bringing forth new life within the Church is always directed to the Church’s role in bringing forth new life in the world. To give and to nurture life means first and foremost to make way for peace; peace within and peace with others.

Even though the New Testament uses a variety of images in its reflection of Mary, that of “mother” is most fundamental. The historical fact that Mary gave birth to Jesus established her unique relationship to her Son, a relationship that serves as the basis for all other reflections about her. That simple fact is declared throughout the New Testament: Jesus did not just drop down from heaven; He was born of a woman. It makes sense in the octave of Christmas, that great Feast celebrating the Incarnation, God becoming one of us in the birth of His Son, that we should also remember the principal player in that taking place, namely His Mother Mary.

Our Gospel lesson for today is part of the famous nativity narrative from St. Luke in which it says, “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.” I think of her catching every significant event, every holy moment surrounding her Son’s birth to treasure them. She doesn’t just notice them, or even just remember them, or take note of them…. She “treasures” them. She values and is enriched by them.

Do we ever treasure anything in our heart? Most of the ways people are used to celebrating New Years Eve do not aid in that. The drinking, partying, loud crowds can be quite a distraction to being at peace, contemplative, and treasuring things in our hearts. With all the ups and downs that we go through in our private lives and life together as a parish, a family, a community; we have “holy moments” to treasure in our hearts and reflect where God is in all of it, to be expectant of the births taking place in our lives. We must always be expectant, open to mystery, open to the labor pangs to which the Holy Spirit gives us from time to time. We must be, to use the second dictionary definition of pregnant: “rich in significance, meaningful,” so that our faith does not become still born, unable to give life to others. As we begin the year 2012, we ask God that we may be blessed with the desire and the readiness to “treasure things in our hearts.” We ask that in dong so, we may enjoy the same peace that Mother Mary enjoyed, even in the midst of all the confusion, the weight of her responsibility, and the world’s distractions.

May the words of our first lesson from Numbers be yours this day and throughout the New Year: “The Lord bless you and keep you: the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you: the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace!”

Happy New Year!