Text: Colossians 3:12-17

As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yoursleves with love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Sermon

On this eve of the New Year, I want to tell you what I believe is the most profound spiritual truth I count on for living and for dying. I believe it to be the theological vision I would want for us as a Presbyterian congregation in the New Year of our Lord as well as a help in taking a deep breath and letting go of this past year.

This truth is found in the lectionary reading for this morning from the letter known as Colossians. Verse 14 says, “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

You see, when Christianity began, all converts to this new faith were baptized and given a new white robe to wear. This robe symbolized the clothing of Easter people.

You were dressed in the love of Christ and instructed to pass on the good news of that love.

These Easter people were to live as if death had no power and selfishness held no appeal--though we know in our hearts both still are present and potent realities.

This new clothing symbolized being initiated into a new way of living expressed in the words of Christmas and Easter and the most frequently mentioned in scripture: “Be not afraid.”

Remember how in childhood, teams were chosen? Remember how on the play ground, sides were picked? Being chosen was based on how good you were at the sport, contest or challenge.

Well, when you see me pour the water at the start of each service of worship, you are being powerfully reminded that God’s choosing is so drastically different than those childhood experiences.

God’s choice is based on our need, not our expertise, skills or proficiency. And not even our believing Christian doctrine.

Baptism is the sign that invites us to trust that God really is as loving as Jesus’ life indicates.

Now, the truth is, trusting of God’s love is a lot harder than it sounds.

Why?

Because our human life, even the next breath we take, is linked to our inevitable death.

This means there is always within us an awareness of insecurity, so deep it is almost always unconscious.

We are finite. We are bounded by death and always threatened with nonbeing.

Our death and anxiety about it rises not because we are bad or evil or needing to be punished, though some forms of Christianity, often the most popular ones, insist that is the case.

No, to many who speak in the scriptures, death is a part of our being embodied creatures.

None of us brought ourselves into life, and none of us can keep death from being inevitable.

It is the angst of being human.

The awareness of this threat shakes most of us not because it threatens our own sense of self and our life’s meaning, but because we fear for those we love.

Interesting, isn’t it? The more we open our hearts to others, the more susceptible we are to anxiety because we know more than anything else that we are not in control and can not protect or keep safe from harm all who dwell in our hearts.

Yet, it is the very enlargement of our hearts through love that, in the end, casts out the very anxiety that loving creates. This mystery of clothing ourselves with love does lead in the end to the feeling of peace that binds everything together in harmony. But getting to the point in our faith journey where we are so glad to clothe ourselves in love is so difficult.

Daily life reminds us in little and big ways that the people we value, even, too, our own projects and accomplishments, are in a world of changing circumstances, unpredictable actions of others and unanticipated consequences.

So much of what we do everyday, then, is to try to secure the people and things we value such as our families, our work and our nation – even our religion. But deep down, we know we will fail for our life is bounded by death.

What does this threat do to us?

It causes some of us to redouble our efforts to secure and to take control. We try harder. We grit our teeth tighter as we attempt to make everything secure. In other words, we play at being God.

We feverishly assert ourselves with the result being we become burned-out shells rather than human beings radiating God’s image.

But not all of us choose this active, driven response to cope with our finiteness.

Some of us do the opposite. We suppress our anxiety by losing ourselves in lesser, more easily secured objects of desire such as possessions, food, drink, any kind of entertainment or fascination with gadgetry.

In other words, we go numb. We all know persons who go totally passive and opt out of all forms of commitment. They withhold themselves in relationships and can’t be relied upon to ever grow up and be responsible for themselves.

So some of us become bound to the sin of self-assertion, theologically called “pride,” where we redouble and redouble again all our efforts to somehow find control. Some of us become the opposite: choosing a life where we do nothing but seek a way to numb ourselves -- binding ourselves to the sin of what our faith calls “sloth.”

So on this New Year’s Eve, 2006, the truest thing I can tell you is life is more than we can handle. The other truest thing I can tell you is we don’t have to handle it alone.

We are not alone in our finiteness.

We are not alone in all we face.

We are not alone when it comes to our hopes and our fears.

Isn’t this what the Christmas carol promises? Remember these words from, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” -- “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

This is the heart of Christmas, born of Easter faith. The very center of our faith is that God is full of compassion for us, full of kindness toward us, and possessed by humility in relating to us. In other words, God never is arrogant in power toward us. God is full of mercy and patience toward us and all Creation.

Christmas proclaims: We are not alone either with our fears or our hopes.

This is the secret to the New Year, and also the secret to letting go of the past. And it is the secret of each breath you take in every moment of your life. In belonging to Jesus Christ, we belong to a faithful God. Live each breath you take as an expression of your trust in God’s love.

I know nothing more lovely to give you for the New Year than the belief that God is our faithful companion who calls us to let go of our fears and share our lives every day with less worry.

This is what it is to be clothed in love.

And this is the way to peace -- both in life and in death.