Prayer: Savior who reigns within and about us, lead us into new directions for the sake of your kingdom. May we dedicate the coming year to proclaiming your glory while loving and serving your people. We are so blessed! Thank you, Jesus! Amen (from the Moravian Daily Text, December 31, 2020)
Reading: John 1: 1-18 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: How is it that it is on the last day of the year our text is “In the beginning was the Word…”? Well, now that you mention it, on this last day of 2020 we are all extremely hopeful for a new beginning and it certainly can’t come soon enough. The midnight countdown to 2021 has been long anticipated and will be much celebrated. The year 2020 has become synonymous with global pandemic, social injustice and political polarization. Let us be done with it! However, we won’t be. Yet, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was God. Sounds cryptic. Words evoking more questions than they answer. Certainly not satisfying the long list of this, that and the other thing we think we need to go on - vaccine, racial equity, unity instead of division. Instead all we get is a word – the Word. ALL? The Word is ALL there is! That is the point. What got us through the fear of the unknown in the face of disease, suffering and death? Love in the form of compassion and care for others. What got us to see injustice? When we looked with love in the face of every hurting human and saw a child of God; saw the face of God. What got us to the point we could unite? When with love we respected each other’s choice and, given results, we agreed to move forward in unity. The Word is Love and in the beginning THAT is all we need. --Ruth Gates
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