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New Year 2010 SignpostA new year. A new decade.

One of the banks in my city wished us all a happy new year by putting this message on their marquee: “2010 – Here we come!”

That’s a funny way to put it. It gives the impression that we are rocketing through time, blowing past the years as if they were obstacles in the way of a glorious future.

But for many people, the marking of a new year is bittersweet. The years are piling up on us. We feel stagnant, or frustrated, or anxious about the future. 2010 has come to us, whether we are prepared or not.

I have friends and family members who have recently received bad diagnoses from the doctor. For them, 2010 looks to be filled more with peril than promise.

Others face financial trouble. Some are expecting severe financial losses. Churches and non-profits are concerned about the rate of giving. Everyone wants to think that 2010 will be better than 2009, but we have few reasons to expect things to improve.

Nationally, we are deep in debt, and current proposals from Congress would only dig a deeper hole.

We are mired in two wars that seem much like a seesaw. When the war in one country seems to be going well, it gets worse in the other.

The dawn of 2010 does not provoke the same sense of wonder and excitement that we experienced ten years ago as we welcomed the new millennium. Leaving aside the fears of Y2k, most people greeted 2000 with rosy expectations. Terrorist attacks, two wars, a series of devastating national disasters, a major recession, corporate greed and scandal – these events from the previous decade have tempered our expectations for the next one.

As a Christian, all these worrisome circumstances are teaching me to cling less to my other identities and hold more tightly to Christ.

Growing up, I had the notion that America was virtually invincible. I saw our country as a beacon of light to the rest of the world. Sure we had our troubles, but the Dream was strong, and we were moving toward a bright future.

Now, I wonder if America might be like Rome before the invasion of the barbarians. The empire is rotting away from the inside out. Our military might defends an increasingly weak and decadent way of life. Evangelistically speaking, the great movements of Christian growth and expansion are taking place elsewhere: in South America, China, and Africa.

But curiously, I am still optimistic. The more biblical word is hopeful. The words “hope” and “waiting” often go together in Scripture. In Romanian, the translation often combines the two into one word: nădejde.

The more I see history as God’s Story and less as the story of America or the story of my life, the more I take comfort. We are here but a moment. Our call is to remain faithful to Christ through good times and bad.

Facing a similar downturn in his day, Augustine once remarked:

“People speak of hard times. Let us live well and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.”

There are reasons to fear, yes. But earthly fears give us all the more reason to trust. The more awesome our view of God, the less awful seem our problems.

I will not cheerfully fake optimism, but will continue to cling tightly to the only source of stability in a shifting world: Christ, who holds everything together by the power of his word.

“Hopeful waiting” – nădejde – whether in the doctor’s waiting room, the sands of Iraq, facing possible unemployment, or the inevitability of another terrorist attack.

As Lesslie Newbigin once remarked: “I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!”

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