Ecclesiastes 3:1-12
Colossians 3: 12‑17
           
I suspect that some time before the end of the day yesterday, many of us had a nagging question run through our minds.  It may have been a fleeting thought.  We may not have permitted it to stay long but I suspect some of some of us wondered some time late in the day yesterday, “Is this all there is to Christmas?”  The “Is this all there is?” question expands in our minds to include the past year and that becomes a metaphor for life.  We quickly turn the downside of Christmas into the upside of the New Year with expectations of what the New Year will bring.  While it may be disturbing to have thoughts like “Is this all there is?” it really is an appropriate question because it can cause us to address what is important in our lives.  What should have our attention? 
           
How do my actions and activities support or derail what I claim to be important in my life?  How do you feel as you come near to the end of this year?  Are you glad or sad that 2010 is ending?  What is the basis for your feelings about the year that is nearly completed?  If you are glad that 2010 is ending, is it because you anticipate life to be better for you in 2011?  On what do you base that anticipation?  If you are sad about 2010 ending, do you know what it is about this year that is difficult to turn lose? 
           
We do have a tendency at times to think magically.  One of those times often is at the end of the year.  Because of our wishfulness that some things will be different than they are we anticipate that with the coming of a new year the changes will come automatically and instantly.  
           
As the year ends we often are in a reflective mood.  You may not consider yourself to be a reflective person, but if you have thought at all about 2010 anticipating 2011, you have been reflecting.  Reflections are images or impressions that are seen backwards.  We use mirrors to reflect back to us the images of ourselves, but when we look into mirrors, we are all turned around.  When we use our minds to reflect over events, we look backwards through those events at our impressions of the meaning and value of those events. Often things seem all turned around as if life is upside down.
           
Have you begun to look backwards at Christmas?  A tremendous amount of energy was expended in preparing for Christmas.  The investment of energy preparing for an event increases the anticipation of the value, purpose, promise, and meaning of the event.  This may never be more evident to us than at Christmas.  With the energy, excitement, and expectations mounting toward Christmas, it is common for many people to be disappointed when Christmas arrives or at least before the day is over.  Why is this?  Part of it has to do with reflections.  Did you ask silently sometime yesterday, "Is this all there is?  Have I spent all this time, energy, yes, and money getting ready for this and now it is over?"  Perhaps your anticipation involved expectations of everything being just right, perfect, working exactly as you imagined them taking place in your mind, but it didn't happen.  And so you felt disappointed. 
           
With the emphasis on joy and celebration during this season you may have felt disheartened, depressed, and betrayed because you did not feel happy.  You may have thought there was something wrong with you because you were not happy.  Yet, joy and happiness cannot be programmed.  As you reflect, look backwards through your impressions you see the events of the season from a different angle and with different lighting.  As a result of this perspective you may now see that the Christmas season could not deliver all that you expected, anticipated, and wanted.  How much we have allowed our culture to dictate our expectations.  How many times did we ask children, "What do you want for Christmas?"  How many times were we listing in our own minds what we wanted for Christmas?  One of the results is that we may have overdosed on wants.  We may have wanted so much that whatever we received could not possibly be enough.  Or what we received may have been so different from what we expected that we had difficulty seeing any value for us in what was given to us. 
           
These are some of the reasons that make this Sunday one of the most awkward Sundays in the year for me.  I have as much difficulty preparing a sermon for this Sunday as any Sunday, some years even more difficulty than any other week. Much of the reason for that revolves around the question, "Where will the people be?"  This question expresses my curiosity both literally and emotionally.  Where are the people today?  We received several inquiries if we would have a worship service today. During the Advent season people began to make their way to the church.  Each Sunday participation and expectation increased.  Christmas Eve has become an important time of worship for us.  Part of the significance is because so many people join together in worship at one time in one place.  Then comes the Sunday after Christmas and the question, "Where are the people?"
          
  This morning I am especially concerned about you.  I see you.  I know you are physically present this morning, but where are you emotionally?  Not only is this the downside of Christmas, but also it is the ending of the year.  Thus many of us find ourselves looking at the double reflections of both Christmas and the year.  As we look backwards through our impressions of the year we are now confronted with those issues that we put off until after Christmas.  I suspect each of us has one or two pieces of baggage like that that we are carrying around with us.  We have stored them until after Christmas and now, painful as it is to face, it is after Christmas. 
           
Another aspect to the emotional awkwardness of today is that we feel ourselves existing between has been and not yet.  Our reflections over the past year may fill us with anger, resentment, and bitterness because of all the disappointing things that have happened to us during the year or because of a major disappointment that has colored our perspective of every thing else that has happened.  If this is your perspective then 2010 is coming to a bitter end.  I wonder from where the phrase, the bitter end, came?  Some have suggested that it originated with a group of American Indians who ate a certain type of root but would leave the last bite or two because it had a bitter taste near the end.  Coffee drinkers usually leave the last dregs at the bottom of the cup because they say the taste becomes strong and bitter unless it is Maxwell House which claims to be good to the last drop.  What about the end of the year?  Are you eager to get most years behind you because they end bitterly?  Is it inevitable that the passing of time turns life sour like it does milk? 
           
This Sunday is awkward for us because our feelings of being in the middle, our in betweeness make us look two ways, backward and forward.  We begin to anticipate the arrival of a new year, but we are not yet ready for what may be involved with the coming of another year.  As one year is ending another is beginning just as one day ends and another begins.  T. S. Eliot has stated it well:
    
In the end is our beginning
     What we call the beginning is often the end
     And to make an end is to make a beginning.
     The end is where we start from. (Little Gidding, p. 144 The Complete Poems and Plays)
           
Much of the heightened awareness of the awkwardness of today results from this being a time of transition from one year to the next.  Much of the awkwardness we bring with us is due to our uneasiness, our expectations, and our disappointments.  Each choice we make has a corresponding loss.  Every beginning is an ending and every ending is a beginning.  Whether we are standing at the bitter end or the fruitful beginning has a great deal to do with our perspective and attitude toward life.  People on occasion speak of needing to get away.  There is value in having a break in one's regular routine otherwise the routine becomes a rut.  However, whatever it is from which we need to get away we usually carry with us wherever we go. 
           
As we find ourselves caught in between has been and not yet there is bad news and good news.  Part of the bad news is that events that have happened to us during the past year that have been painful, destructive, and agonizing.  There is no way to undo them.  The good news is tied to our perspectives.  How we view these events now, how we integrate these events into our lives, our abilities to acknowledge now that these events have occurred in our lives, what can we do about them, how can we cope and deal with them will affect the angles at which we view these events and may help shed light on them.  Thus we can focus our attention and energy on these events in a way that will help us to integrate past events into present living. 
           
What is your perspective about the past year?  How do you view it?  Is your conclusion about life that the best already has been or is yet to be?  I suspect that part of the in betweenness that we feel during this last week of the year that seems so awkward is that in our disappointment that all our expectations and anticipations were not realized we think maybe the best has been.  Nothing is further from biblical faith.  The stories of faith in the Bible all point in the direction that the best is yet to be. 
           
The passage in Colossians that was read earlier can be a helpful guide for us to have a fruitful beginning rather than a bitter end.  With this as our guide not only will 2011 have a fruitful beginning but also we may discover that our lives are becoming better rather than bitter with each passing month.  In this portion of the letter are listed twelve things we can put on.  As a way of helping us to have a fruitful beginning and for life becoming better rather than bitter what about focusing on one of these things each month during the next year.  This could be our focus during 2011: January‑Compassion; February‑ Kindness; March‑Humility; April‑Meekness; May‑Patience; June‑ Forbearance; July‑Forgiveness; August‑Love; September‑Peace; October‑Thankfulness; November‑Wisdom; December‑Praise to God.  Take a look at this passage later today or sometime during this week and work out a spiritual focus calendar for this next year.  Then at the end of 2011 our reflections over the year may reveal that life for us is becoming better rather than bitter.  Then we will be motivated by the view of life that the best is yet to be.