A new church year begins on the first Sunday of Advent.  Does a new beginning raise your expectations that
things will get better, or do you rather fear that it will get worse?  Would you describe yourself as more of an optimist or a pessimist?
There are important changes ahead of us in our church.  We have to give up things that have always defined our identity.  The union with Lochend and New Abbey Parish Church will not only bring a new name.  Above all, we will no longer have Deacons and a Deacons’ Court.  It was very hard for the Kirk Session to accept that.  But we were given no choice.  This is guidance from the General Assembly.
But that should not frustrate us.  We can find new ways of involving our former Deacons in our new parish.  Every change and every challenge is a chance to think anew and to use your imagination.

From the Bible we also know: The changes in our church are only of minor importance in comparison to the changes the Jesus calls us to make.  To sell everything, to take up the cross – that affects much more our daily lives. In the end, even in the new parish we can go on with the life that we are used to – we still have our services at the same time and in the same place.  But Jesus proclaims a renewal that is much more far-reaching.

“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. Similarly, no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins, but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” (Mark 2:21.22)
Jesus’ point here is clear.  The new that Jesus brings is incompatible with the old.  He has not come to patch up an old system that does not match the revolutionary rule of God.  Even in a reformed church we have to admit that Jesus is not simply a reformer of the old, but one who will transform it.  The new world that Jesus proclaims does not allow compromises with the world that we are used to.  As Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Romans 12:3)

So often we do things because that is simply what we have done before and that is what other people do.  But then we are only part of the old world that is passing away.  The new heaven and the new earth that we are waiting for is not an improved world, it is something new that we cannot know from our perspective.  As God is always new in the sense that he surpasses everything we know, so his kingdom will be different from anything we are used to.  To face the new, it needs faith. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love
him.” (Romans 8:28)

A new year gives us like every new day a chance to start anew because the new heaven and the new earth are not just a dream of a fantasist, they are promises that become reality in the presence of God.  For the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ (Revelation 21:5)  And that is what God has done in the birth of his son.  Jesus was not born as an earthly king in a palace to show his power and wealth, but as the king of heaven and earth who lies in a manger to show his love.  Christmas is not so much the fulfilment of our wishes, but it is what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived: the coming of the kingdom
of God!  Come and let us celebrate in our Christmas services the mystery of the helpless baby that is older and more powerful than anything else.