Opening Lines
Happy New Year!
While it is situated at the very end of the secular calendar, Advent and Christmas are actually the beginning of the Christian year. This season is one of my favorites because I love beginnings. They set the stage for everything that will follow without tipping their hand. Truly great beginnings grab your attention and draw you deeper into something bigger than yourself. While it is situated at the very end of the secular calendar, Advent and Christmas are actually the beginning of the Christian year.
To get a sense of what I mean, read over a sampling of some of my favorite opening lines of great novels:
“In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’” -F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.” -Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” -Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 Years of Solitude
“It was a pleasure to burn.” -Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
So, in the spirit of new beginnings, I am going to spend this week examining the openings of each of the four gospels. What wisdom do they hold for us in the Advent and Christmas season? How might they encourage us to love and minister to our neighbors? Join me on this journey as we begin a new year together.
Rev. Ryan Young
