Celtic Odyssey

Today’s Readings: Ecclesiastes 3.1-13; Psalm 8; Revelation 21.1-6a; Matthew 25.31-46 In every Reading today, there is a sense of newness — of beginning again. And rightly so as it’s the first day of the new calendar year. But I wanted to just highlight a couple of things. In Ecclesiastes we have the famous “There’s a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heavens” (verse 1). It’s such a famous passage that The Byrds made it into a song: What I like about this passage, though, is that, as we begin a new year, the seasons have long passed for a lot of the things listed. There’s no longer a season for killing or tearing down; only a season for healing and building up (verse 3). There’s no longer a season for throwing stones or avoiding embraces; only a season of gathering stones and embracing each other (verse 5). And there’s no longer a season for keeping silent or hating or war; there’s only a season for speaking and loving and peace (vv. 7-8). God...

During this time of year, people often ask, “What’s your resolutions for the new year?” And, a lot of the time, before I can even answer, they’re telling me their resolutions! I then tell them, “We don’t make resolutions.” Well, not on the first of January anyway. You see, a number of years ago, my wife made a startling discovery — the reason a lot of our new year’s resolutions don’t work out is because we’re still in the middle of the Winter season! This is the time when things are still dormant. This is when Nature herself is locked away in a deep sleep — resting and preparing for a new year. She also discovered the “pagan” holiday of Spring Equinox. This is the time when new beginnings take place. Nature begins to bring forth new life — the flowers start to bloom; animals birthing their young. Heck, even Christians observe this time of the season with the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus! With my (then) new research into Celtic Christianity, observing the Spring Equin...

Luke 2:15-21: When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them. Eight days later, when the baby was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel even before he was conceived. On this first day of the new year, when we’re all thinking about resolutions—things to change, things to give up, things to start doing—the Gospel reading is about the world getting a n...