John 3.16-21

Jesus said to Nicodemus, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’

Early on New Year’s Day I walk across the Golden Jubilee Bridge – which last night was lit up in a blaze of fireworks – and look down the Thames towards St Paul’s, surrounded by the skyscrapers.

The technological progress and material growth of our nation is astonishing. And yet the needs of our human race are as great as ever – and those of the planet are more urgent than ever after decades of plunder and neglect.

I watch some of last night’s revellers staggering towards me across the bridge, arms draped round each other’s shoulders, and new visitors arriving to see the sights. Each person coming towards me unique, different, made in the image of God. Jesus came into the world to save each one of us.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true ….

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant and the free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (1809–92)

How might you bring about the change Tennyson suggests in the year ahead? In your own life? In your church and community? In our world?