Final Sunday In 2024

This is the Fifth and final Sunday in the year 2024. Today is the Last Lord’s Day Sunday in a year that will very soon, no longer be.  Many, like myself, are mentally checking off these fast, fading days. However, I am quite alert to the fact that for some people, it’s a time of elation and expectation. Albeit, on the other hand, there are others who are disheartened and anxious. Indeed, such a time can be super triumphant for some and excruciatingly traumatic for others.

With this day and two more to go before the New Year is ushered in, as God wills, we will throw ourselves fully and freely at the feet of our Lord and Saviour, who has taught us that His Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, is here with us, to lead and guide us on, in all wisdom and truth. Whether you are excited about the coming year, or bitterly anxious about it, we shall all be lifted in heart and mind, so that there is movement in us, all to the glory of God, the Father. This is our hope, in these ending days and in the New Year to come, as God wills.

AMEN!

Although we have celebrated Advent Day, and Advent Week, Advent carols, or Christmas carols, still continue to ring through in the air. Indeed, the air is still saturated with Advent Words and Advent Works, which bring us continued Comfort, Courage, Correction and Consolation, in God’s Circle of Warmth.

I now bring you a Christmas Carol by Isaac Watts, which we have been singing and hearing all through the Advent Season. It’s one of those carols of joy and exuberance which is loved and well-known by adults and children alike. Dare I also say that I have heard non-Christians singing this carol also, and I smile to myself, even if they use it as just another catchy, lively and nice song? The carol is, Joy to the World, but we have been led to focus on this specific verse.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found.

For the next two days, as we have the year fade away into the unknown, forever, we will, catch and keep evermore, all that there is of the good, which this year has brought to us. We want all that our Lord has already given to us in His Advent Words and Advent Works to remain with us, as we face a new journey, a new path, a new horizon in 2025.

As I am being schooled in this time of contemplation, my mind is gently guided and directed to a preciously touching, yet powerfully compelling parting scene between Elijah and Elisha. Elisha is facing an end-time with his master, Elijah, who is leaving him for good, not unlike how the old year is about to leave us for good. Although Elisha might have wanted his master to linger a bit longer, he faces the reality that the time has come for this departure. Wisely and astutely, he asks to have a take-away, something of his master, which will be of absolute benefit to him. What does he desire to have from his master? What is the take-away he wants? It is his master’s cloak, that which he can swaddle himself in. Swaddled in his master’s cloak, he is able to be and do as his master, in the service of God.  

The very first thing Elisha does when he takes hold of his master’s cloak is to use it as he saw his master use it, to part the waters of the Jordan. We are told that Elijah and Elisha were at the Jordan and they had to cross it. Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground. 2 Kings 2: 8. Now, as Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind 2 Kings 2: 11b, Elisha has to return. He faces the crossing of the same Jordan. He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah? he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over. 2 Kings 2: 14.

What we are noting is that though the year is leaving us, we have our Lord and Master’s Advent Words and Works in the Holy Spirit, whom He has left with us. From this time on, we like Elisha must have the confidence, faith and courage to use what we have at our disposal, to follow our Master.

We continue into the next two days, the final days of 2024, knowing that whatever are the blocking waters before us, we can part them, through the power of the Holy Spirit with us.