Beginning

January 2, 2011, New Year's Worship

Genesis Chapter One
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning?the first day.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning?the sixth day.
John Chapter One
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Happy New Year! As the new year begins, letfs think about the topic of "beginning" today. As the new year starts, we feel that we have a chance to have a new beginning in our lives. We forget the old. We forgive the old. We start fresh and clean. The Bible word for this is repentance. We feel sorry for the mistakes and sins that we committed, we want to do better, we ask God for forgiveness and trusting that forgiveness, we pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to amend, to change our sinful lives. And with forgiveness, there is hope. We hope that the new year will be better than last year. We hope that we will be closer to God, and also closer to our family and friends.

When shall we start this new beginning? January First seems like a good place. That is what our calendar says. That is when we start, but in the Bible readings which we read, God had already started a long time ago. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." "In the beginning was the Word." That beginning was at the creation of the world, but even way before that, we are told that Jesus was already with God. I think that this is important because it means that even at creation God was already working for our salvation. Creation and Salvation go hand-in-hand together. The plan of creation included the plan of salvation. In the infinite knowledge of omniscient God, God knew that people would fall into sin. Salvation was not an afterthought. Salvation was not an emergency fix when things went wrong. God did not create a defective world, but he did not create a machine that could make no mistakes. He created people. He created people with soul, with feelings, capable of making decisions, and capable of love. Machines cannot love. Broken machines can be fixed with tools, but broken people can only be fixed with love. And so with the creation of people whom he loved, God already had the plan to send His beloved Son, Jesus Christ to show the world the love of God.

You could say that the beginning of salvation was from eternity. You could say it started at the birth of Christ or at the death and resurrection of Christ. You could say that salvation will start at the end of the world. You could say that salvation begins when you believe that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, when you believe that he died and rose to forgive your sin.

At the beginning of this new year, let us celebrate that Christ has already begun our salvation. It is a new creation. And so with repentance and trust and hope and love and peace and joy, we start this new year which we number, "A.D. Anno Domini, The Year of Our Lord 2011."

Amen.

Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church

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