There is a lot that we hope for in this new year. There is so much we hope for that I dared to tag this worship service with the audacious claim that this worship might end the pandemic.
It won’t. Of course, it won’t.
The news broke yesterday in Germany that this pandemic isn’t likely to end in the spring. I’m not surprised. I can’t really imagine being surprised right now but I still dare to dream that this will end — and that somehow we can do something to make it end.
It won’t be like last year. We won’t be so naive to think that a simple flip of the calendar page will change everything. It is not just saying goodbye to this year but searching for how we might enter into the year that dawns. We can enter this new year without expecting it all to change but believing that we can be some small part of what ends this much death and devastation.
We can change it. That is how it will end. We will believe in what my friend Laura Stephens-Reed called grounded hope. She explains it like this,
A hope that acknowledges the physical danger we still face and forges ahead anyway. A confidence that Jesus is with us in the particularity of our congregations and concerns. A belief that come what may, God wants good for us and invites us into agency, into actively making things better by the ways we treat one another and respond to challenge. An empowerment by the courage and wisdom of the Holy Spirit, who prompts us to recognize the holy and leap for joy when we least expect it.
Yes. Yes. YES. Let that be how we enter this new year.
(Please do read the whole essay Laura shares at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Blog. It’ll give you a burst to write that Christmas sermon that you can’t find words for — and if you’re still struggling I have some wonders in my kitchen for Christmas that could help.)
I don’t know if I did Laura’s words credit but I hope so. I hope that this worship experience I’ve entitled New Year Epiphanies invites the gathered community to reflect on what has been and dream of what could be through simple rituals and gentle questions. It hints toward the Epiphany as something that will happen but assumes that it hasn’t happened yet. Instead, I imagined it being used in those Sundays in the end of Christmastide in and around when the calendar does flip from 2021 to 2022.
I didn’t want to do anything overly complicated. There are no special props beyond the communion elements, pen, paper and tea light candles — and even these things could be substituted for whatever is available at home that day. It’s designed for Zoom but it could very well work in other worship formations and settings.
For you, dear pastor, there are words that you don’t have to create to lead your beautiful people into the hope of the new year through all of those weird low-attendance Sundays after Christmas Eve. It gives you an opportunity to lead and reflect on what you imagine this year will be. How will you be part of the change that needs to come? How will we end this pandemic?
Those are not questions that are answered in the prayers I wrote but I hope that some great wisdom emerges from within the worshipping body moving through this experience together. That’s my hope, my very grounded hope.
This complete worship service is now available for purchase for $10. It can be purchased it here.
I am praying for you, dear pastor. I’m praying for you so much.
Cooking with Elsa 
Thank you for all of this and I am praying for you as well.
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