What do you remember about last year? Or, since this is 2020, what do you remember about the past decade? Do you take your yearly learning and use it for New Year’s resolutions? Or do you write your resolutions and hope for the best?
Every year around Epiphany, pretty much without fail, I get a song stuck in my head. It is a piece from Mendelssohn’s unfinished oratorio Christus, “There Shall a Star from Jacob.” I think the University Choir that I sang with in college must have sung it. I might have learned it there. But I can’t remember. Or maybe I heard it several years sung by the choir at St. Bart’s in New York City while I was a member there. Or maybe it was both. I can’t remember.
However and whenever I heard it, there is something about the piece that has imprinted itself on my soul. My Feast of the Epiphany is not complete without at least one YouTube listen.
There shall a star from Jacob come forth, and a sceptre from Israel rise up,
and dash in pieces princes and nations.
As bright the star of morning gleams,
so Jesus sheddeth glorious beams of light and consolation!
Thy Word, O Lord,
radiance darting,
truth imparting,
gives salvation;
Thine be praise and adoration!
I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. I’ve never had much luck keeping them. I’ve never had much luck on reflecting and sharing what I’ve learned from the previous year. Mostly, the turning of the calendar for me is a prayer to God, “Don’t let me mess it up too much this time around.” A plea for the continued grace and mercy from a savior who is both radiance darting and truth imparting far beyond anything I could ever ask or imagine.
Maybe, maybe, self-reflection and self-optimization is not the point to this existence of mine, and instead of believing every thought that comes along, that being opened by the spirit of God in unexplainable ways, through a song, music, poetry, movies, visual art, sculpture, whatever moves you through your memories and into the present moment is where God is found, and that is enough.
Maybe it is enough to remember that the light that guided the Magi is there to guide me as well, and that just as they made a major course correction after they met the savior, this road I’m on following Jesus is going to go in unexpected directions that I haven’t mapped yet. May we all find that light in the new year.