Changing Seasons
Elaine Utting
Around this time each year our local convenience store stocks early daffodils. They were on display last week for the first time in 2025. The season is changing.
Christmas decorations are back in the attic, and the daffodils give us a promise that winter is coming to an end, and spring is not far away.
I was reminded of the chorus of this song from my youth:
‘To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven’
The song is almost word for word from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
Pete Seeger the author, as he said, just rearranged the words a little, added the ‘turn, turn, turn’ to the chorus, and six words at the end. And wrote the tune.
Most of you reading this probably weren’t born when it was a huge hit for The Byrds - in 1965.
Haunting harmonies, a beautiful jangly riff - and a plea for peace at the height of the US involvement in the proxy war with the USSR in Vietnam.
The US withdrew in 1973 and the war finally ended in 1975.
‘a time to kill, a time to heal…
a time for war, and a time for peace’
Ecclesiastes 3: 3a,8b
These sound like harsh words to our 21st century Western ears, especially applied to a specific conflict. But they have been true across the centuries, as times of war and times of peace rise & fall through history. And they are still a reality today in many places around the world.
May the Lord bring His season of peace, justice and healing to them all.
As we move into 2025 many things are changing, in our nation and across the world. New rulers and policies, the balance of power shifting, allegiances repositioning, and more. Perhaps some of these changes may affect us personally.
One of the Old Testament prophets, Daniel, with his friends, was a captive and under threat from the king of another nation. They prayed. The Lord answered their prayers, and gave Daniel the insight and revelation he needed to rescue the situation.
With thanksgiving he prayed:
Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.
He changes times and seasons: he deposes kings and raises up others.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.
Daniel 2: 20-22
Daniel is saying that the God we love and serve knows exactly what is happening. And ultimately He is in control.
Jesus also spoke about upheaval and hard times:
You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.
Matthew 24:6
Most powerfully He promised to be with us and encourage us through the Holy Spirit:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.
John 14:27
Jesus often says ‘Peace be with you’ when He meets His disciples after He has risen.
‘Shalom’. It was a common greeting, like ‘Hello’, but it also has a deeper meaning. Not just the absence of conflict. But a sense of rightness, completeness and wellbeing, a restfulness of spirit. A sense of the world as God intended and will finally bring into being.
May we all be comforted and encouraged by the shalom of Jesus as 2025 unfolds.
