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Show SIJESI EDITORIAL I will fjivo you rest take my voke upon you, mid learn from mi', for 1 am gentle and lowly in lie.-ii'l, and you will find rest for your souls my burden burd-en is light." Kip olf the page imd excuse I I if mislakle? You can feel mily yourself. Our sins are like a burden on our backs. illy ourselves we will have to jlive with them and earry them ourselves. For they not only NEW YEAR 1958 A. D. Ily ('. K. Ml I I I l it. 1'astor ll'nr o!:e. the new year is not ,in inlaid. Nor is the- old year .in old man with a long hand ; : f ( I sickle Nor il it a time-J.nii time-J.nii i ii r. like we supposi ,1 the iieiind harrie rln tie. Nor is il UaiT.iim n'a I n -general ion Our 'in w ar could l" giii in .March atlecl ourselves, but also our fellowinan and our God! Mis-lakes Mis-lakes that are dated 1057 and before -M158 and after are to be dated "Inthe-year-of-our-I.ord." He is the burden-bearer Hut before lie is your burden bearer, you are to be His bearer. Hip off the page? No, lake a loke. He harnessed to Him 'his harness is light, and in taking il, you harness the burden of your cares to Him. In being yoked to Him, you learn from Him how lie can give rest to your sold; how gentle He is. Your past can be A. D. Your mistakes arc basically basi-cally theological. If against God, or against your fellow-man, fellow-man, they " are still against your God. as il did for the Romans. Or it could begin ill fall, as il does lor the Jews. Or it could begin be-gin in December 1st. as it does, in the Christian church year.' January 1 is only a mark on a p;,ge a convenience to en-iiumeiate en-iiumeiate (lie span of Hli.i days. .") hours. 4! minutes and 41). 7 seconds. Il could hi1 a longer line on someone's sun dial. So. if we make so much over the new l!lf!i let's not neglect the "A. 1)." If only we could rip off our mistakes by tearing off a page from the calendar! The New Year does not help here, but the A. D. does. Mistakes that lie in tlie past, like to hound us in the present. We have made mistakes in judgment. With the stroke of mid night December :. 1 . I ;."i7 A D . we have been plunged into tln New Year. 1 !).,)! A. D We begin writing that uidaniili;;r "l!t:i,'!" and all seems strange'-and strange'-and new. We do not tack on tlie A IV because thai would be too strange and new! and too lengthy! and unnecessary!; Everyone knows this is 1!(."8 Ad Domine! Hut not everyone know s that the "In-the car-1 of Our-Lord" translation uf A. D. puts time. Ihe calendar, our needs and wants directly, where it belongs. I This is the busy time for would- be prophets. Business: analysts prepare elaborate' graphs and charts to predict' new business trends. Congress will prophesy our national spending needs. Even whether! prophets take tlie long look j and unblushingly leave their 3-day forecast for a ,'tti.Vday perspectus. It makes for eon versation. but it can mislead ' It can rewrite for us: "l!-.":t A. P." That is, "the year of the prophet." because he said so. We may even become prophets' of sorts because of this stimulus. We may even think we can predict, and by predating we make, and by our doing we write the history of the future. Jlul this is not "A. D." All this is initiated by the mystic and magic stroke of midnight. All this and more. We rip off the last December of '57 from the wall calendar in a motion of triumph, as if we can wipe out the past This is the time for making resolutions. resolu-tions. We are painfully aware of past mistakes, and new we can resolve to redeem the past by bettering the future. Put this is not -A. D." either. .mistakes in thinking, in cal filiating, in living. Only the very conceited and most unconscious un-conscious individual can close his eves to his mistakes or Ismail them off ast though they 'were non-existent. "Tag on a reason," he says to himself. ; ii i id you are justified. Excuse-iinaking Excuse-iinaking is a well traveled road, j "That was back in 1!)."7," is jcnuiigh excuse for some. But mistakes find meaning in a theological setting, and in our "A. I)." Christian theology does not make light of mistakes. mis-takes. It uses that nasty word "ins" to identify them. Holy Scripture has much to say .about them and even graphically graphi-cally depicts them, even its I they east shadows on the saints. Hut Christian theology j traces them directly through to a denouement in A. D. It clarifies the complexities of i .sin in the Burden Bearer of our race. Of Him it was said. "Cast your cares upon Him." He says, "Come to me, all who jlabor and are heavy laden, and No. you cannot wipe out your mistakes, but you can in penitanco be yoked to Christ, and heap them on Him. This is the meaning of forgiveness. But God's forgiveness leads you to those you have wronged. wrong-ed. It is not sin easy thing to face your God with your sins. Nor to face your fellovvman with your sins. One is easier, but. it has just about disappeared disap-peared from our culture. "Fcy-give "Fcy-give us, as we forgive those " presupposes that we too are asking others to forgive us. Can you date them? Mistakes, 1!)57? Write them this way: Mistakes, f)57. A. D. Any mistakes mis-takes in the year of our Lord are mistakes we are responsible, respon-sible, first, to our Lord. Our Lord, the burden-beiier, who for 1 !)")()-some years invites, "Come to Me with the burden of your sins," says also to us, "Come to Me in this MY year also." And, "I will give you rest." That's the past. How can the future be a li)58 A. D.? The very same way. We cannot become be-come prophets. Our future is A. D. It is His year. Our time lies in His hands. We could predict the coming week, but what if sickness or death interrupts? in-terrupts? Could be. We can try to chart our future, but what of the variables, the un-knows? un-knows? What of job, family, the price index, Russia, , our national security, our strength and failings, our lacki of trust in Chid? If we have time, time on our hands, il is only tlie present, pres-ent, given as a present. 1958 A. D. should mean this to us. Each day we receive a package. pack-age. Each day it is a new package, pack-age, containing (il) seconds every minute, for 24 hours. The packages are not a different differ-ent brand or kind just because it is H)5!l. But the A. D. can open our eyes to the fact that it belongs to our Lord, whose year this also this. Each day the paeake is unwrapped for you and when you see it from 1 1 mi, our Lord, don't you ask yourself, "What am I doing with it?" Some day this kind of package will not come to you any longer. What prep- aratinns are you making when the seconds .stop licking and there is the timele.ssne.ss of an : eternity'.' The Lord, whose . years these are, would ask, "Are you laying up tor your- ; self, treasures in heaven'.'" And if you say, '"No, how'.'" He ftfiain bays, "Coins unto Mo.;' "Our future can be an A. D. In fact, a Christian, nearly in , the Christian era said that, much. Paul of Tarsus put itj this way. ' For me to live is Christ." This is tlie kind of calendar you would expect u! Christian to Ihe by. Do you see the direction of A. D.'.'i Some folks live to eat. For; others, "to live" is to read. For! others, to live is growing pe-j lunias. For others, to live is' washing, cleaning, sleeping. I For some, to live is money. But when a Christian says,! "For me to live is Christ," he is living because of Christ, for Christ, with Christ, in Christ, and closer to Christ. This is the year of our Lord. iWUl you write it 1958 A. D.? |