DEDICATION SUNDAY

Luke 21-40

It is the first day of a new year, a day some use for resolutions, some use to reminisce about “Auld Lang Syne” or “the good old days,” and almost all wonder about and hope for a better year ahead. Today we will do all of these. As we think about the Bible today—the written account of God’s relationship with the created ones—today we can also think about clues that the Bible lifts up for a day such as this. First, faithful people of the Bible honored, celebrated, or marked significant events in our lives by praising God. Since we will not pass this way again, we will do the same. And second, the Bible shows us that the end of our earthly life is not a finish line, it is a step into life again. We might consider it our step into a new Eden, a place where we can experience the tree of life, according to Revelation, and not the Genesis tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If we read the end of our Bibles, we find phrases like: there is a new heaven and a new earth; and heaven comes to earth adorned like a bride; God wants to live with us; so God comes down to transform earth at Christmas, rather than us leaving the mess we have made of the earth to go to heaven instead. Those who believe in the rapture and flying away will want to check those verses in Revelation out again; God comes to join the faithful in the end, not pull the faithful from the earth! Perhaps our later days are not up in heaven apart from earth, but here in a radically transformed world that will become heaven? The transformed picture in Revelation 22 is that there is a river, as in the beginning, and there is a tree of life that this time is life giving, rather than the tree of knowledge which was choice-creating. There will be nothing more that is accursed, and all will be light, and the Lamb of God will provide the lamplight.

In the amazingly popular show “The Lion King,” lyricist Tim Rice wrote these words:

From the day we arrive on the planet

And blinking, step into the sun

There's more to see than can ever be seen

More to do than can ever be done

There's far too much to take in here

More to find than can ever be found

But the sun rolling high

Through the sapphire sky

Keeps great and small on the endless round

It's the Circle of Life, and it moves us all

Through despair and hope, through faith and love

Till we find our place, on the path unwinding

in the Circle, the Circle of Life.

Joni Mitchell called it “The Circle Game” when “The seasons they go round and round … we can’t return, we can only look behind.” And today we cannot return to 2011, and many would say “Good!” We can only look behind, and look to 2012 with faith, hope, and love. Troubadour Harry Chapin wrote “All my life’s a circle, but I can’t tell you why; seasons spinning round again, the years keep rollin’ by.” So here we are, at the beginning of another new year. This is first new year for infants; but for the rest of us we have done it before, and we may, by the grace of God, do it again.

This message about circle is not about reincarnation; it is about seeing every season of life as leading into a new season. But there is one other thing that happened all through the Bible that makes our thoughts and hopes different from what we get from a folk song or a New Year’s Eve song: that is, marking significant events in life. The people of Israel, when they experienced an exceptional event that blessed their lives, erected standing stones in the ground so that when people walked by, they knew that God had done something extraordinary there. It is a good practice; we usually mark events with a piece of paper called a certificate; and often it is with pictures, or with shared videos. The marking of events in our faith may include a baptism certificate, or a dedication certificate. In today’s Scripture from Luke you’ll recall that Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to Jerusalem to be dedicated, that is, to present him to the Lord. That was expected in order to express thanks to God for the gift of the child, and to dedicate the child’s life back to God. We still mark such special days in churches; we have certificates of Baptism and certificates of membership-when someone connects with this Christian community and with God; we also have certificates of Christian Marriage, when someone says before God and witnesses that they will pledge their life and love to the one who stands beside them; and we have certificates of ordination, when people are set apart for special work as ministers, elders, or deacons. Those are highlight days. But as I said to the children, when they play a game, they might win, or they might lose, but they can always start a new game at the end. They cannot change the outcome of the game they’ve just played, but they can learn from that game and perhaps play it better the next time. Life is something like that; unless we had time machines, we could not go back and re-do or undo our mistakes. And what if we could? We would never give thought to our actions because they could always be undone. Instead, God made it so our choices matter. We weigh our decisions before we make one, and at the beginning of this New Year, it is time to start weighing our 2012 decisions. God does not offer us do-overs for our mistakes; God offers us grace instead, to move us down the road of learning and maturing, and ultimately we can ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness is costly when God offers it, and it carries a painful price when humans offer it as well; but it is the way of moving on without untold anger, grief, or bitterness. Today we can emotionally mark this day with a spiritual standing stone: a note in a diary, a kept bulletin, or a prayer. We are not starting life over, nor is life really just a circle, but we are trying to live this year in a way that is better than the way we lived last year. We try to grow toward God’s hope for us. We will still be celebrating Easter and our birthday, and Thanksgiving in new ways. Therefore today we leave 2011 behind; now with our words of confession and our best intentions, we are starting 2012. We will begin with Holy Communion, remembering our God who loved us so much that he came to earth in Jesus. He wanted to be with us on earth; and God still wants that. And then, for those who would like the blessing of anointing, we will anoint you with the sign of the cross on your forehead that the Lord may bless and keep you in this new year. Life may seem like a circle, but it is also filled with milestones. Jesus had a dedication day. Today can be a dedication, or rededication day, for you.

Let us pray: O God of New Beginnings: the bread and cups have been prepared, and the oil is ready. Only you know the souls that are ready to start anew. Bless and keep them this day and in the new year. We pray in the name of Jesus, born so long ago to save us. Amen.

Jeffrey A. Sumner January 1, 2012