Rev's Reasonings - New Years Greetings

Greetings!

2026 is here! We are challenged again by time with all that a new year brings. 5 weeks ago the Church New Year that has a different focus in Advent gets us to prepare our hearts for the coming gift.

The lights that we have seen adorning our high streets and town centres with the explosions of fireworks not least in London brings everything to a dramatic finale of the countdown. 

Then what? 

We go through the process of taking down all that glistens and everything is paired back. There is almost a stripping after our feasting and perhaps over indulgence and the challenge of a long January ahead where some things that are unresolved are out in the open with no tinsel to hide behind.

This state post-Christmas and New Year is a challenging one and we put up defences of resolutions and diets and counting the costs of our spending.

Yet, in the midst of it all, Christmas is still present as we might be again distracted by God’s gift as we journey with the Christ-Child.

My encouragement is maybe the reset needed is within and all that Jesus Christ came into the world. To save us from that which separates and hides God from our lives and neighbours to places that are not about flourishing or becoming our best selves. I believe that the search starts when we look within and deeper and do work that helps us to understand who our focus truly needs to be at this time of the year.

I encourage you and I to start there and who knows where this might lead like the Wise Ones who were outsiders who became insiders and placed value beyond the gifts brought to the one who is the ultimate gift-giver.

May your journey of 2026 be one of discovery of the gift of Christ but that of good things in our homes, communities and beyond!

Peace