Beginning a new year together we continue to celebrate Jesus’ arrival, remembering that the Christian story is about the birth of love, radical and unconditional love that comes into the world to lead us to unity and peace. Whether we take the Christmas and Epiphany stories as myth or miracle, we find in them a description of love that is offered to all people, justice and redemption born in a world filled with the realities of war and poverty and natural disaster. Through the babe in the manger, we find a love that strives to put to an end the divisive presence of prejudice and hate, a love that inspires healing not just of our individual hearts but for all humankind. This is a love that arrives poor and helpless to inspire us to work to end poverty, hunger, and homelessness.

It is as we contemplate the great stories of our tradition that we can ask ourselves important questions with the start of 2012: What kind of story are we telling with our days? Are we helping to build upon the mission of the One we call the Prince of Peace?

It’s never too late. That’s what we learn at the scene in the manger, and even more powerfully it’s what we learn on Calvary, there at the cross, the place where God’s love was most brutally betrayed. But what happens in Jerusalem? Love is restored. New life prevails. The Christian message of hope is that no one can stop the God’s eternal and everlasting grace.

Yes, it’s in this season we celebrate the powers of love that bring people together. Just as Mary and Joseph gathered with the shepherds and Wise Men, so we, too, have the opportunity to build new community here at Payson Park Church and beyond. May we be opened this year to new life and greater love, by the Spirit’s power.

With love from The Reverend Lael Atkinson