The hymn declares, “All beautiful the march of days/ As seasons come and go/ The Hand that shaped the rose hath wrought/ The crystal of the snow.” Snow we won’t see, we trust, but a seasonal change of sorts we are seeing, and a new year as well. Through it all, in all the events of our years and decades, God goes with us each step of the way. On this particular day we join together to go with God. Therefore let us, with the confident hopes and aspirations of another new year, worship God.
Pastoral Prayer
We bow before Thee in both gratitude and amazement, O God. We are grateful for all Thy blessings to us during the past year, those which are obvious to us and those which are more subtle. We thank Thee too for the assurance we have of continued blessings, knowing that Thy will for all of us is only for good. We also are amazed when we consider how many more calamities might have befallen us that did not in the year just ended, and from which we were spared. Our lives are very fragile and astonishingly strong, both at the same time. Help us to live in constant gratitude for the good which washed over us and the bad which did not. Give us equanimity of mind and spirit, so that we may more happily and fruitfully live with whatever amount of time we may have in this world.
We thank Thee for every person who has ever been associated with this congregation, and particularly for those who are now with Thee in Thine eternal kingdom. We praise Thee for the talents and interests which everyone brings here, and for the ways in which all of us try to live out our lives for the better because we have been here. As a congregation, we ask for Thy strength, Thy love, and Thy trust. As Thou didst shine forth uniquely in Jesus, the Christ, so shine also in us, for both his sake and Thine.
We remember the few we know and the many millions we don’t know who come into the new year fearful or in pain or with little or no hope. Uphold the sick, the poor, the homeless, the forgotten, the unemployed, the unemployable, and the reclusive. We ask Thee to make us a nation that collectively illustrates deep concern for such people, and that transforms thoughtful talk about assisting such people into actual deeds and programs which provide such assistance. Make each of us into better instruments to do Thy will for Thy needy children around us and around the world. These things we pray in Jesus’ name. Now as he taught his disciples, we also pray together, saying, Our Father….