But in the midst of his great triumphs and public success, Robert Frost’s personal life was filled with pain and sorrow. Three of his children died far too young, another daughter and his sister were committed to mental institutions, and the only daughter who survived blamed her father for their family misfortunes.

In the winter of his life, looking back on all that had happened, Robert Frost said that he could sum up everything he had ever learned in only three words: "Life Goes On." And because he was a man of deep faith, Frost added this: "God seems to me to be someone who wants us to win . . ." (From excerpts in an article by columnist James J. Kilpatrick, December 1977, and Robert Frost: the Later Years by Lawrence Thompson). Frost died in peace in 1963 at the age of 89.

Now there was another poet who also lived in New England at about the same time. Her name was Edna St. Vincent Millay and like Frost, she achieved some degree of notoriety.

I don’t know anything about her faith or religious conviction, but the one line for which she will be long remembered (she died in 1950) reflects a radically different perspective: "Life must go on, but I forget just why," wrote Edna St. Vincent Millay.

This morning I put before you the contrast of those two poets who looked at life through different lenses: Frost who said with a sense of faithful expectation, "Life goes on" and Millay who wrote with fateful resignation, "Life must go on, but I forget just why." And the question our sermon raises today, at the dawn of a new year, a new century and a new millennium, is this: how then do we choose to live the gift of life which God has given to us?

The choice was clear: life as God intended it to be through a faithful relationship with Him...or giving in to temptation which would lead to disobedience and sin. Adam and Eve chose the wrong way, and their faith disintegrated into fear. Genesis, chapter three, reveals that when God came looking for them in the garden, calling out "Where are you?" they answered "When we heard your voice, we hid ourselves, for we were afraid." (Genesis 3:8-10, paraphrase)

That is the old, old story which we call "The Fall of Humanity." Although no one can say for certain exactly how it happened, we do know, all these generations later, that something deep and sacred was broken. But as Christians, we believe that instead of giving up on us, In the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4) God sent forth His Son, our Savior Jesus, to heal the breach. Today He still reaches out for us, calling us by name, saying Where are you? and we have a choice to make. We can try to hide from Him in fear or we can answer "Here I am Lord" and decide to follow Him by faith.

Last January, and on through 1999, I was surprised and somewhat disturbed by the gloom and doom and fearful predictions that so many people, including Christians, projected as we approached the new millennium. Some said that "the world as we know it" would end because Christ was coming again. Churches across the country held seminars on Y2K preparation, encouraging folks to hunker down in their basements with enough food and supplies to help them survive the disasters that would paralyze America and the rest of the world. And I read about a pastor up in Michigan who held fast to a rule that his daughter couldn’t go on a date until she was sixteen. At "fifteen and a half," the girl was invited to the Christmas dance. Her father said no, and with a sense of exasperation, the daughter said "Dad, I just hope the Lord comes back between now and January 1, so you’ll have to live with yourself for the rest of eternity knowing that your daughter never had a date"!

Well frankly, all of that apocalyptic commotion disturbed me, until I began to do some research about what it was like at the turn of the last millennium, and this is what I discovered.

According to the journal of Radulph Glaber, a monk in France who wrote down what he saw and heard during the first half of the 11^th century, "January 1, 1000 was expected to be the great day of wrath promised in the Bible, when God would pour out storms and plagues upon the earth and people would be caught up in the air to be judged before the Lord for all their sins..."

Accordingly, many people spent the latter half of 999 A.D. giving away their property and sharing the proceeds with the poor, hoping to avert the condemnation predicted in the gospels.

Hordes of pilgrims from around the globe descended on Jerusalem, expecting that the Lord would return there to rule the world. In Rome, Pope Sylvester II sang the midnight mass at St. Peters on the hour approaching midnight on the last day of the old millennium. The great square outside the church was packed with worshipers, some of whom threw themselves on the ground and waited in prayer and panic for the final words of the mass - "ite, missa est." And as the bell tolled above them, many died of fright and others were stricken by strokes and heart attacks.

They all waited in breathless silence. But when the tolling of the bells went on and nothing happened, they looked around in astonishment. Some laughed, some cried. And soon they were dancing and shouting in the streets, hugging one another as the crowds erupted into rejoicing. The earth had been spared. Christ had not returned. (From Preaching the New Millennium, by John Killinger, Abingdon Press, 1999, pages 13-15)

You see, way back in Y1K it was almost identical to what was envisioned for Y2K: fearful, fatalistic predictions and premonitions that never came true! My friends, that is called superstition, fueled by fear, and it is contrary and has nothing to do with our Christian religion, founded and grounded by faith in Jesus Christ who came to tell us over and over and over again Be not afraid! Be not afraid! Be not afraid!

As 2000 A.D. unfolds, with all of its promise and possibilities, I pray that we will listen to Him, let go of our fears, leave behind our superstitions and decide to follow Him by faith as He leads us into the future. Alice Meynell, in her poem "Christ in the Universe," has said that the only thing we need to believe and hold onto is this: "Our wayside planet...bears as its chief treasure one forsaken grave."

The good news, the great news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ has already come to save us from sin and to offer us abundant life right here and right now. Someday, He will come again, but He told us not to worry about that, and not to try to predict when or where it will happen. What we need is to live by faith today, to do our best and to leave with the Lord all the rest.

The last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22: points us in the direction that God wants us to take: Then He showed me the river...and the tree of life, yielding its fruit...and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations...nothing shall be accursed...and God’s servants shall see His face and worship Him...for the Lord God will be their light and they shall reign forever! (Rev. 22:1-5, paraphrase)

Could it be that John, who wrote those words of vision, was trying to tell us that what happened in the Garden of Eden has once and for all been redeemed and forgiven? He uses the same images from the book of Genesis - the flowing river, the tree of life, the fruit on its branches...but instead of the curse that was placed on Adam and Eve, John points us toward the healing of the nations and hope for all of humanity.

If that is so, then contrary to what people have said down through the generations, the grand finale of the book of Revelation does not lead to disaster, despair and the end of life. Rather, it declares with joyful expectation that God intends for life to go on and promises that He will lead us by His light into eternity.

Robert Frost believed that, and so can we. "Life Goes On" he said, and together with him and all the saints across the ages, we can choose faith instead of fear, hope over and against despair.

I know a woman who believes that. She’s 105 years old, her name is Lillian, and every time I visit and bring communion to her and her daughter, I think of an interview I once saw on television where a news commentator asked another lady who was 102, "What were things like in your day?" She smiled and replied, "Sonny, this is my day!"

Lillian, who is twice as old as I am plus a year, has lived in the 19^th, the 20^th and now the 21^st century. Although her body is growing frail, her mind is sharp, her faith is deep, and her heart is strong. And Lillian believes, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that life goes on! So it was, so it is and so it can be, for all of us who walk with Jesus Christ from here to eternity.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.