2025 Final Blog Post

Friends, we have arrived at the end of our 2025 journey! Human beings seem to crave newness and fresh beginnings, despite being frightened of them. At this time of transition, we hear “new year, new you!” But we know that isn’t true; the old year and who we have been in it does not remain solidly in the past. This year is not Las Vegas, and we cannot claim “what happens in 2025 stays in 2025!

I think the reason for this is that we associate newness with emptiness, as if an unmarked page is somehow perfect or as it should be. It’s probably for this reason that many so-called resolutions die out within a few weeks: it becomes apparent that last year’s problems and the person we have been remain with us. And we ask rhetorically but not inquisitively, “how can things be different when they are still the same?”

This question came up for me when reading Exodus 12:2. Allow me to set the stage for you: the Hebrew people are currently enslaved by the Egyptians. God has already sent several plagues plus warnings to Pharoah through Moses and Aaron. But bondage remains a reality. The Hebrew people are still in the same place and same circumstances they have been for hundreds of years.

And yet, the text reads: “The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: ‘This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.’” God then gives instructions for navigating the final plague—the death of every firstborn—and for the future observance of Passover. But the newness of their identity as God’s people rather than Pharaoh’s slaves begins now.

To be clear, Jews celebrate the new calendar year at Rosh Hashanah in the fall. This text in Exodus doesn’t so much establish a calendar as it does express a new beginning for the people. And I find it interesting that this new beginning doesn’t emerge after the trauma of bondage and violence but during it. And the celebration of Passover—the thanksgiving of death passing over—is instituted before death passes them over.

I feel this is so encouraging and relevant to our current experience.There are so many things in our world from which we pray God will deliver us.Injustice, hatred, violence, and strife comprise the substance of our news and conversations, and to be honest, I often feel paralyzed and overwhelmed by the enormity of change that the world needs. And I sometimes fall into the trap of believing that newness and rebirth cannot be found until the evil and darkness is gone.

But these words in Exodus 12 remind me that God’s new life returns everyday. God is not imprisoned by the situations humans have created for themselves. It was into this same world with its same problems that we recently celebrated Christmas—God bringing new life into a world still committed to death.

And that’s when it hit me! The most important words God speaks to Moses and Aaron in this passage are “for you,” it shall be a new beginning for you. We have been given a choice, another way. Where human systems of power and oppression see the ongoing status quo, we have the ability to sense and seize new beginnings. Where the world capitalizes on fear and despair, we have been endowed with divine courage not just to see new life, but to be and create new life. We don’t need for the world or our circumstances to change and start completely over in order to begin celebrating God’s love and salvation. Such hope and celebration is the strength by which we might allow new life to spread.

May you celebrate God’s coming redemption already, and may this year, 2026, be for you—for us—a new beginning