Goodby 2008

Tonight CBS had their end of the year Christmas specials. Charlie Brown and his pals rang in the New Year with a dance while Charlie tried to finish reading War and Peace. I guess the title of that book is a good summary of just about any year lately. The Charlie Brown special was followed by Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer saving the New Year. It was actually a very interesting story. It seems that Father Time has called out to Santa Claus for help because Happy the Baby New Year has disappeared and if he doesn't get back in six days than the Old Year will continue forever. The weather is horrible and so Rudolph is asked to go out and find him before it's too late. It is not an easy mission though because there is an evil bird out there trying to find him as well. This evil bird is supposed to turn into snow and ice with the New Year so he wants to find the Baby and stop him from taking the throne of the New Year. In other words he wants to stop time. A strange story yes, but if you think about it that is kind of scary. Just imagine if 2008 never ended. What if it just went on and on and on? Some parts of that might not be too bad, there were many good things that happened in 2008, but there was also a lot of bad.

That is always the great thing about a New Year, we get to restart all over again. We put the old year behind us and say things will be different this year. They may not be, but at least we have some hope that they will be. January first always gives us a clean slate in a way. We need that, we want that. So thankfully tomorrow night we can say goodbye 2008, its time to move on. Its time for 2009!

Pastor Fred