We are here to help people love and worship God. We aim to be, and encourage others to become, committed and active disciples of Jesus,
who love God and worship him, who know the power of the Holy Spirit and who show God’s love in every part of their lives.
Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
This prayer, which we use during the season of Epiphany, is one of my favourite prayers at the beginning of a new year. In the long, bleak days of winter it is a prayer of hope, and in January and February, I need a boost of hope!
It is based on the teaching of Saint Paul that in Christ all things will be reconciled to God and made whole and new (see Paul’s letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians).
This prayer reminds me of the fullness of Christian hope - not for escape from the world, but for the renewal of God’s good, though fallen and broken creation.
The prayer also holds for me the hope that in Christ I too will be renewed, healed and made whole. It picks up on the understanding of the early Church, one that is the focus of our Christmas celebrations, that in Christ God became human so that humans might become divine.
The prayer also reminds us that the renewal of all things in Christ does not come as a result of the Church’s striving or of our human efforts; it is the work of God’s rich grace. We are invited and called to work with God, but at the heart of our hope is the grace, the unearned and undeserved grace of God in Christ. The fulness of our hope as Christians, for ourselves and for all of God’s creation, is the goodness and gift of God in Christ.
May you find hope to sustain you in these winter days.
God bless,
Tim.
St Mary's Church, Priory Road, Ecclesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S35 9XZ, United Kingdom
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