Good, good morning, everyone! How beautiful it is to greet one another this morning, in the joy and relief and anticipation that this New Year brings. David and I heralded the new on New Year's Eve day and night, as perhaps many of you did, through the wonders of television technology, marking the arrival of the year 2000 all around the world. What an amazing global celebration of creativity and joy, as peoples everywhere, familiar and exotic, said "No" to fear and pessimism and violence, and "YES" to peace and beauty and majesty and plain old-fashioned fun! What a day for us all.

After all the dire predictions of technological breakdown and terrorism and disaster, wasn't it exhilarating to discover, together, as the planet spun 'round through December 31st, that, indeed, the peoples of the world were instead united in those precious, universal qualities of goodness and hope?!

As the next day dawned, I went out early to make sure that the sun was indeed coming up, and brought in the papers. The very large type headline of the New York Times stopped me in my tracks: 01/01/00. After all the jubilation of the previous night, there was something about those zeroes that seemed a bit daunting, frightening even. They were so empty. So full of nothing. It was as if, having crossed, finally, the threshold into this new everything-new month, new year, new decade, new century, new millennium-it suddenly felt as if we'd fallen off a cliff, or that the tether to the control capsule had been severed and we were floating in space now, free-form, beyond the ties of gravity and familiarity and safety.

And then the opening words of John's Gospel appointed for this Sunday came to me, these most beautiful and awesome and mysterious and reassuring words of comfort and joy: "In the beginning, in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God . . . and what has come to being in it was Life, and the life was the light of all people."

In the beginning: God, life, light, which we know through the grace and truth of Christ Jesus, God with us. The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. The Word dwelling among us, to give us life, to give us power to become children of God. All time, you see, infused with God's overflowing, compassionate, life-generating love for us and for all people.

You know, in the romance languages, Spanish, French, Italian, and so forth, this passage comes even more alive, as the Greek word Logos, which becomes Word in English, is translated as "Verb." Those of you who remember your grade school grammar lessons remember that a verb expresses existence and action. In the beginning, was the Verb and the Verb was with God and the Verb was God and this life was the light of the human race.

You know, the angels keep telling us not to be afraid, but we keep forgetting, don't we? Fear not! God's Verb, God's existence and action, have already filled those zeroes with life, the light of the world! From the beginning and to the end of time, all the zeroes of our existence are filled with God's love for us.

Now 01/01/00 seems not frightening, but exciting, inviting, enticing. Full of possibility and promise. The door is open into God's future.

On Christmas Eve, Pope John Paul did something very special that sounds strange and foreign to most of us. He opened a holy door in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, a door only opened in what are called Jubilee Years, holy years of forgiveness and reconciliation. 2000 is such a year. The opening of the door is to remind Christians of Jesus' words later in John's Gospel: "I am the door and signify the passage from sin to grace, from death to new life, which Christians know in Jesus Christ."

In passing through the holy door, and we can do it symbolically today as we renew our baptismal vows and feast on God's salvation present in the bread and cup of Holy Communion, in crossing that threshold, we renew our commitments to Christ as this new year begins. In addition to whatever New Year's resolutions we may have earnestly already made, you know, about eating less, exercising more and so forth, this morning we are invited to take the word of God into our hearts anew. We are invited to seek that renewal of spirit and hope that comes through God alone. Our worship this first Sunday of the new . . . of the new everything, gives each of us the opportunity so to resolve.

As the advent of this new millennium approached, in the new Greenwich Dome in England, a 400-piece choir and orchestra performed a new work commissioned for the occasion from John Tavener, the British composer and ardent adherent of Orthodox Christianity. For the piece, Tavener adapted the words of the Millennium Resolution of the churches of Britain, and I close with it this morning for you to ponder, as you prepare to come forward to receive the sacraments, in your hearts going through that spiritual door which leads to closer communion with Christ Jesus:

"Let there be respect for the earth, O Lord;
Peace for your people, O Lord;
Love in our lives and delight in the good, O Lord,
Forgiveness for past wrongs, O Lord,
And from now on, a new beginning, O Lord.
Alleluia. Amen."

Dear brothers and sisters, come through the door of God's heart, come forward into life and light beyond the telling, and receive power anew to become children of God, disciples of Christ.