To Members and friends of Christ Lutheran Church:

 Think now again.

In a little rural cemetery in Maine, there is an old gravestone engraved with some Danish words that say, “tenke nu engang.” Translated into English, that says, “Think now again.”

Those are strange words. One wonders what the engraver meant by them, and what did he want us to understand them to mean, “Think now again.” The nephew of the deceased has said that it is an invitation for anyone to think about their life, about their future, and about time itself. Think now again.

And when we think about such things we realize that time itself is a gift, and that we now have the gift we call, 2008; and that 2007 was also a gift. And, those words, “think now again,” are an invitation to appreciate the value of the gift.

Nearly a year ago we received a gift we called, 2007, and as we “think now again,” we may see opportunities missed and wrong choices that were made—and yet, we may also see that our God, who is Lord of our time, has guided us, protected us, and even prospered us in the past, and now wants to go on with us. The fact that we now go into 2008 is in itself a gift. So, what does one do with a gift when discovering it? We give thanks, and we recognize the Giver.

As we go into 2008, with all of the unknowns—and the unknown can scare us a bit—I am reminded of comments made by a passenger of a large ship crossing the Atlantic from London to New York. He observed two dogs aboard the ship; one, which was walked each day by one of the crew members, was large and strong. But it was nervous and very uneasy, bothered by the slightest movement of the ship. The other was a tiny little thing, also walked each day. But it was playful and at ease. The man observed that what made the difference in their disposition was that the small one was in the care of a little girl, to whom the dog belonged; the two of them had a bond, while the large dog was in the care of a stranger with whom it knew no bond.

Now we go into 2008 knowing that the God who has a bond with us in our baptism is also the Lord of time. In Christ he has said, “Behold, I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”

We go into 2008 with its unknowns, and we know that this is a dangerous world, the same world in which the Son of God was crucified. Be we can take our cue from that old Danish engraver who said, "think now again,” and when we do that, we must recall the message of Christmas as spoken in the Gospel of John, “the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” Those are words of hope as we go into the coming year of 2008.

“The darkness has not overcome it.” A poet wrote a fine poem about that that verse from John in a poem entitled, Grounds for Hope.
If I am asked
what are your grounds for hope,
this is my answer:
Light is Lord over darkness,
truth is lord over falsehood,
life is ever lord over death.

Of all the facts I daily live with,
there’s none more comforting
than this:
If I have two rooms,
one dark, the other light,
and I open the door between them,
the dark room becomes lighter
without the light one
becoming darker. I know
this is no headline,
but it’s a marvelous footnote;
and God comforts me in that.

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” With that message of hope, we are invited to “think now again,” as we go into 2008.

The Reverend John H. Nieman, Pastor
January 2008

previous page|top of page|next page