Next Service: January 25, 2026, 6:30 pm (6:20 pm, prelude)
Location: St. Philip’s United Methodist Church, 16321 Great Oaks Dr, Round Rock, TX 78681
Grace and Peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I greet you today on the eve of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., only days after the celebration of the new year, 2026.
In fact, our worship team kicks off this new year as guests in a new house – or rather, a house that is new to us. The lovely St. Philip’s United Methodist Church welcomes us this month, as we travel to Round Rock, Texas for our first service in their charming sanctuary. If you’re used to worshiping with us in Georgetown, consider driving a few minutes south next week for a memorable start to 2026. We will return to San Gabriel Presbyterian Church on February 22, 2026.
But with all of the celebration of the new year, it’s true that – from a spiritual perspective – the holidays are exhausting. Amid the celebrations, there is plenty of stress and sometimes there is tragedy. A staggering number of losses happen right around the weeks between Thanksgiving and the New Year. In my own close circle of friends, I counted three losses this year: one of them a suicide and one the death of a child.
There are no words that can take away the agony of such a loss, not even the knowledge that God experienced exactly the same loss in the death of his Son, Jesus Christ. There is only the reality of the next day, the drumbeat of time that moves forward with or without us. A mother who lost her 14-year-old daughter recently wrote that her very body has rebelled, pulled itself into the ground, her skin turned to paper, her bones to ash. Her lamentation echoes Jeremiah’s grief at the destruction of Jerusalem.
I want you to know that I will light a candle for this friend of mine, and more. Her faith is strong, and she is loved. But across the world, more and more people grapple with such grief as their nations and lands are torn by war. Yet in the dark, sterile ground of despair, we may yet see a kind of rebellion. Enter the main character, HOPE. Hope is the phoenix that rises from the ashes of tragedy: maybe not all at once; maybe just in a slow, determined crawl. But hope is the refusal to lay down and die while the world burns. Jeremiah declares in Lamentations 3:21 that “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; and they are new every morning, great is Your faithfulness.”
What does this look like in ordinary time? It may look very small. It may be a choice to allow someone in front of you in traffic, even if you’ve just had the worst day of your life. It may be a smile to someone you’ve never met. Every encouragement gives a gift to someone, but it is often surprising how much it gives back. In the winter, the earth sleeps and the trees lose their leaves. From that sleep, spring awakens green shoots of life. It is only a little while, a few weeks, until life returns. Today, we can think of hope as that defiant refusal of the sleeping earth to succumb to death; to wait faithfully until it is time to come into full bloom, in the Glory of God.
Hope is not a shallow platitude, it is a defiant act of courage and faith. It requires grit and determination that are shorn up by God’s grace. The light shines, and hope is the inspiration to look up to Glory, not down to despair. Perhaps this is why Paul describes it as one of the three greatest virtues. And so, as we consider the continuation of our year’s focus, “Hope Beyond All Hope.”
I remind you why we come together to pray as a community every month. We do it not because it serves us, but because we are servants of God. When we gather together, God is in our midst.
There is a lot of anxiety in the world today. But there is nothing in this world that is bigger than God. And so we gather together, to ask the Lord’s blessing.
See you on Sunday, January 25, 2026.
In Christ’s love,
Ginger Mann
