The Wehrles

This is the copy of my first column published in the Cleveland Sentinel. It’s supposed to become a weekly column.

I personally find that the weeks following Christmas and New Year’s can be emotionally and spiritually very difficult. In the midst of the holiday festivities, I usually find it easy to be optimistic and to approach the New Year with bold resolutions. New Year’s Day however is another story.

To begin with, many of us begin the New Year with a nasty hangover. For me, it was not an alcohol-induced hangover, but rather one brought on by all those hopeful and “helpful” resolutions. On New Year’s Day it usually dawns on me that if I am to keep all those resolutions I will actually have to live with some day-to-day discipline. What a pain in the… neck!

The dreary weather does not help – although as a reformed Yankee, I will take rainy North Carolina over freezing New Jersey any day! I also know that my joyous December spending will show up on the bills that will appear in my mailbox this week.

Some of you are facing those bills without the usual Christmas bonus or having recently lost a job or with great uncertainty about keeping your job in the weeks to come. Some of us were already stretched by a mortgage we were probably ill advised to take out – though the new home is wonderful. And, several families in Cleveland have lost homes this holiday season. Many other families have lost or seriously miss loved ones who have died.

So where am I going with this dreary column? Well, I want to offer you the same compassion that I have found in Jesus. Many of us attended church on Christmas Sunday or even on Christmas Eve. We celebrated with carols, candle-light, communion, the reading of the nativity story, and hopefully some good preaching. We celebrated that Jesus was born – God became a human being.

When Jesus was born, great choirs of angels sang his welcome, shepherds came and worshipped him, and wise men brought him gifts! But how many of us took the time to read the rest of the story? Just as quickly as our Christmas decorations came down and our hangovers set in, Jesus was faced with the life and death realities of human existence:

After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up and flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to try to kill the child.” That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother. [Meanwhile,] Herod sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under. (Matthew 2:13 and 16b, NLT)

I want to end my first column of this New Year by reminding you that Jesus experienced the same difficulties that we experience in these days that follow the celebration. While I seriously doubt Jesus was ever hung-over or faced mortgage payments, there is no doubt in my mind that he experienced the deepest pains that human life can offer. He knows what you are going through.

More than that, Jesus overcame those difficulties – including death itself. And, he can help us overcome them as well. In Jesus’ own words, “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” (John 10:10 NLT)

That is why I have high hopes for this New Year despite the hangover. That is why I follow Jesus. If you would like to check him out, too, keep reading this column. Better yet, attend the church of your choice this Sunday!

God’s richest blessings to you!