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Good morning! This is New Year’s Eve … You see, tomorrow is the First Sunday in Advent. For many Christians the cycle of Bible readings in church will start a new year.  From tomorrow we celebrate the season of Advent, which is so much more than a count of shopping days till Christmas.

In this year when everything we love and hate about the Advent and Christmas season is seen through the lens of pandemic, perhaps it’s a good idea to take time to re-evaluate, to see things from different points of view. Some of us have found ourselves more vulnerable, more dependent on others, our livelihoods more precarious than we thought. Some of us are living with illness and grief, and all of us are living with loss of some sort.

Looking back, as if on New Year’s Eve, what is there to regret and set aside? What is there to be thankful for? Where have there been anxieties and fears, and where signs of life and hope?

Jesus told his friends, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weak and overburdened, and I will give you rest for your souls.’

On this eve of Advent, when our longings for a better world and a brighter future can find focus in God’s promises of down-to-earth presence, may all who seek rest find it:

Burden-shouldering Jesus

Both Alpha and Omega

Beginning and end

Help us today

Look backwards and forwards

In faith

And find rest for our souls. Amen.