Another fresh start?

Well here we are in 2022, another new year, another fresh start and another space of dealing with restrictions. Doesn’t it feel as though this has been going on for so long? It’s actually just been two years since news first broke about a virus which could cause some disruption. Whoever read that news was declaring an understatement like we couldn’t have imagined! There has been so much disruption and sadness throughout the pandemic, it’s forever changed the landscape of our thinking.

While it may feel as though we’ve been dealing with Covid for years, in the grand scheme of things two years isn’t that long really. We’ve just come another Christmas season, the time of advent leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus. For hundreds of years the people of God waited for the Messiah, the one who would save them, of whom they could cry Hosanna, save us. It was a time of quiet, not hearing from God, the Bible wasn’t written in those years of waiting after the last of the prophets had written. It probably felt as though all was quiet, nothing was really going to happen and the waiting game would just continue.

Then the light of the world broke in! The saviour of the world came from heaven to be born on the earth, to grow up and live a human life. The waiting time was over, the Saviour had come, Jesus was alive. Hundreds of years were evaporated with His coming, the silence of God was no more, the Kingdom of God was ready to explode in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

We live in the good of this explosion, the church worldwide which continues to grow at an incredible rate. Thousands daily coming to Christ, many of which we’ll never know about as they are in countries where the underground church is alive and well. Here in our land the church isn’t dead, it’s not a time of waiting or silence either. It’s a time to move forward, to speak the good news of Jesus to the communities around us. He has come, Jesus is alive, and even in this time of restriction the church continues to expand it’s reach.

It is another fresh start, another time to live out our faith, to see people’s lives transformed, to be involved in our communities, to share the love of Christ to those around us, to see the sick healed, ones in financial trouble find freedom, the addict loosed from their chains and the lonely set into families. Yes it is yet another fresh start, thankfully God’s mercies are new every morning, every morning is a fresh start.