Quick Summary:

New Year's Day falls in the middle of a Christmas season in which we look into the face of Mary’s boy child and come to recognize him as the long awaited fulfillment of God’s promises. While the New Year brings wildly varying predictions about what the future will be like, as people who put their trust in Emmanuel, we cross this threshold with the conviction that greater purposes are at work, both within our lives and within the world. Instead of orienting our lives around the predictions of pundits, we orient our lives around God’s promise to be in our midst, working beneath the world’s radar to accomplish God’s intentions.

This conviction is mirrored in our gospel text this morning in the faithful journey of Mary and Joseph, in the naming of their son, in the song of Simeon, and in the exclamation of Anna. Poet Michael Meade has said:
IT’S OUR KNOWLEDGE OF DEATH THAT MAKES US PRAY. EVERY PATH A CHILD TAKES LOOKS PRECARIOUS TO THE PARENT’S EYE. AND IT IS, AND “PRECARIOUS” IS AN OLD WORD WHICH MEANS “FULL OF PRAYERS.”