Moreover, for those who anxiously anticipated that Christ would return to earth at the stroke of midnight on January first, I would suggest that they pay attention to the bumper stickers I saw on a Ford Explorer driving down Peachtree Street just a week ago. The sticker on the left read: "Jesus is Coming Again," and the sticker on the right said "Escape to Wisconsin!"

As Christians who believe that the presence of Jesus Christ is alive and at work in our world here and now, we do not need to fearfully escape from life. Rather, by faith we can embrace the challenges and face the changes which the Lord holds in store for us as we move forward toward the future. And the text that I hope will help to guide us on our journey is taken from Psalm 118, verse 24: This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Now here’s the point. Centuries before Horace wrote those famous words "carpe diem" in his poem, the Psalmist had the same idea in mind as he lifted up his voice in praise to almighty God: This is the day which the Lord has made - let us rejoice and be glad in it!

You see, what the Psalmist had discovered and what all of us need to recognize and remember is that the past is over and gone. There is nothing we can say or do to alter the events which have already happened. What’s more, the future is still beyond us, and all of our worry and anxiety won’t make it any better or any worse.

So if you have come here this morning, carrying the burdens of the past or caught in the vice grip of fear about the future, then listen to this legend about an old man who along his tiresome way met an angel. The old man was bent down under the enormous weight of a big burlap sack across his shoulders and on his back. It was so heavy that all he could do was to stumble along on the road.

The angel said "What have you got in there"? The man replied "In there are my regrets and my worries." The angel said "Empty them out and let me see them."

So the old man lowered the huge sack from his back and turned out the contents. Out came first yesterday, and then tomorrow. The angel picked up yesterday, threw it aside and said "You don’t need to carry those burdens any more, because yesterday is in the hands of God, and no amount of regret will change it." Then the angel picked up tomorrow and said "You don’t need to carry these burdens anymore, because tomorrow is in the hands of God and no amount of worry will change it." (From a sermon entitled "School Days" by Dr. Robert C. Holland, preached at the Shadyside Presbyterian Church on Sunday, September 18, 1983, Pittsburgh, PA). And the legend says that as the man left the sack on the road, he stood up straight and began to walk forward with a sense of relief and hope.

My friends: the past is over and gone. Let it go and leave it behind. The future is in God’s hands. Trust Him to lead you forward every step of the way. And by faith, carpe diem! Seize the day, because today, right here, right now, is the gift which God has given to you. And what you do with it - how you choose to use it and to make the most of it - that is your gift to God.

So seize the day - carpe diem!. For this is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Two nights ago, most of us saw on our television screens the massive crowds which gathered in city after city across the world to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Barbara and I watched, with particular interest, the pictures of Times Square, because our daughter Aly, who now lives in New York, told us she might be there (of all places!).

As our eyes focused on all those two million faces, looking for the one person whom we know and love, it occurred to me that we, each of us, have an opportunity over the next twelve months to concentrate our attention on those who mean the most to us. And we need to do that now, while there’s still time.

On New Year’s Day, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor, wrote a letter from a Nazi prison camp to his fiancé. He had been incarcerated for conspiracy in an attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life, and Bonhoeffer knew that he might not survive.

As the morning light streamed through his cell window on the first of January, that young pastor and theologian, who was only 39 years old, wrote the following words to the woman he had hoped to marry:

"With every power for good to stay and guide me, comforted and inspired beyond all fear, I’ll live these days with you in thought beside me and pass, with you, into the coming year.

While all the powers of good aid and attend us, boldly we’ll face the future, be it what may, at even, and at morn, God will befriend us, and oh, most surely, on each New Year’s Day."

(From "Letters and Papers from Prison" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the MacMillan Company, 1953)

Bonhoeffer was executed four months later, a martyr to the Christian faith who stood beside the Jewish people and spoke out for the cause of justice. But I’m thinking now about the woman he loved and never married, and how often we take for granted our wives and husbands, our children and parents, our brothers and sisters and other family members and friends, without realizing that those relationships will someday come to an end. So beginning with this day, January 1, 2000, cape annum! Seize the new year and affirm the one resolution that really matters: to make the time, to take the time for those whom you love, and to let them know it, because life is too short and people are too precious to take for granted.

But the church at its best, since the dawn of the first century, has proclaimed the good news of the gospel and shared the life-saving, life-changing power of Jesus Christ with every nation. In the name of our Lord, we have reached out to the poor and the sick and the suffering people in this world. And we have tried to stand on the right side of justice and equality for all who belong to God’s human family.

At the close of the last millennium, just a week ago, we celebrated Jesus’ birth. As we begin this next millennium, let us seize the opportunity to work for His kingdom on earth. I hope and pray that these words from Howard Thurman will lead us in the way God wants us to go:

The Work of Christmas

When the songs of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among all people

And to make music in the heart.

Carpe Diem! Carpe Annum! Carpe Millennium! And to God be the glory, both now and forevermore. Amen.

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