With this Sunday we begin the new year. There is always a sense of anticipation and hope when we look forward to new opportunities and new days ahead. Also, there is trepidation and concern as we face problems and difficulties. The Christian faith is one of encouragement and strength. Therefore, we should expect God to give us His help now and each day as we step forward into whatever the future has to bring for us.

We look to the past for guidance and for strength. This is what we as Christians are meant to do on this day as we continue the celebration of that great event, the coming of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, into history His power and His grace are real for us today. It is the intention of God that we should walk into the future with Him by our side.

There are some people who think that somehow in the 21st century mankind has outgrown the need of God and His help, and that all we Christians are doing is continuing in a sentimental way some ancient beliefs and practices. Not at all. The truth of the revelation of Christ is as relevant and powerful and necessary today as it was when He first came on the scene. It is as true as it was when our ancestors first sang "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." The reason we can rest merry on this day is because we have power given to us to face the future. That power out of the past will be real in our hearts if we believe in Jesus. Then we can walk bravely into whatever is to come in the New Year.

Christmas brings out the best and the worst in people. The mass killings that took place in the last few weeks recur every Christmas because locked up in the hearts of human beings are all sorts of repressed fears and guilt. Unfortunately, it is on these special times of the year, when family is drawn together, that they tend to explode. There is nothing different about the 21st century than there was in the 10th century, or the 1st century, about the need of human beings for deliverance and salvation.

The Gospel today is especially meaningful. We heard how Joseph in a dream was guided by God to take the Holy Family down into Egypt until the awful tyrant, the mean and vicious King Herod, no longer was ruling in Judea. This event was to fulfill the prophecy of ancient times, "Out of Egypt I have called My Son."

There was another Joseph in the Bible back in the Old Testament days. This Joseph was the younger son of Jacob, who also was guided by God in dreams just as the Joseph of the Holy Family was. The Old Testament Joseph was gifted and God was with him and revealed to him the future. The early Joseph earned the enmity of his brothers and was sold as a slave into Egypt. It was out of Egypt that God called the children of Israel.

These Biblical accounts all tie together. They are not something only out of the past. They give an accurate description of the inner psychic spiritual world of every human being. We are all slaves, as the ancient Hebrews were: slaves to our fears, slaves to our sins. That is the way you are supposed to read the Bible. The Bible is a spiritual road map to lead us to our eternal happiness.

In ancient times, the children of Israel in a miraculous , as well as in an historical way, were delivered from slavery under Pharoah through the intervention of God. We, too, through the intervention of God, through His Son Jesus Christ, can be and will be delivered from the slavery of our fears and our sins today, right now, and in the days ahead. So we don't have to look with trepidation and concern at what may come to us in the year ahead. Do we have financial problems, health problems, family problems? Is the world going to go to war? Is the economy going to take a few more shocks? Who knows? Jesus himself told us, "In this world you will have tribulation." We are not guaranteed a trouble free life; no one is. What we are guaranteed through Christ is deliverance by the Grace of God. The power of God is given in order for us to deal with our tribulations and to overcome our troubles.

The children of Israel were delivered by God from slavery in Egypt. We who are united with our Lord Jesus have become sons of God. Out of Egypt God has called us-- the Egypt of our sins and of our fears. In ancient times, Pharoah was the one dominating the Israelites, preventing them from going free. As in the time of our Lord, the wicked King Herod was standing as a threat. Today, the power of evil stands before us, holding us in bondage unless we are delivered.

God oftentimes through the means of dreams seeks to call and guide mankind to Him. It was the great psychologist Carl Jung who recognized this as a clinical truth. Dreams, of course, are filled with all sorts of extraneous and meaningless things, so one's dreams are not meant to be an absolute guide for everyday living. Dreams are symbolic.

Jung found in his clinical treatment of thousands and thousands of patients that the dream is the attempt of the conscious mind to get in touch with the unconscious mind. Beneath the unconscious mind is the cosmic depth of God Himself, Who is seeking always to draw us to the fullness of our own individual lives. Jung called this process individualization. He didn't use the term salvation because he was a medical person. He was not talking religion. On the other hand, he knew that the truths of religion, the great stories, the great heroes, the great symbols follow the pattern of drawing us out into the fullness of our own personal development.

God is always calling us to get in touch with ourselves, to face our fears, and to have the courage to overcome our failures, and our weaknesses, and to step out boldly and live. Most of us don't have the time or the money to go through years of psychoanalysis; we don't have to. We have the grace of God to deal with our unconscious selves and to give us the courage and the guidance whereby we can overcome our faults and difficulties. Thank goodness for that. Karen Hornay, an excellent psychiatrist, said that life itself is the healing process that parallels or takes the place of psychiatry for most people.

God is calling all of us at the beginning of the year to take seriously the gift of grace that He has given us in the person of Jesus Christ. Jung found that the only way that people can deal with their fears and their sins is by having an absolute honesty about themselves. Most of us hide the truth from ourselves. That is why our dreams are trying to tell us through symbolism that we are not as good or bad as we think we are, nor are we as blameless, nor are we as helpless. We rationalize our faults and failures. We say, "I am not successful at my work because my boss is so mean." We say, "I am really not able to get along with my wife or husband because they are impossible," etc, etc. It is always someone else's fault.

Also, it is necessary along with a ruthless honesty to have tremendous courage. Wwhatever may be the problems and the complexities facing each one of us, we can face them with Christ in our hearts. This is the meaning of Christ's salvation. He comes with the grace of God, which means the power of God. This power can successfully oppose sickness, loneliness, old age, failure, war, death, and destruction. With Christ with us, as St. Paul said, "who can be against us?" Nothing can stand in the way of our inner peace and harmony. May that great truth bring you closer on the way of salvation-- the truth of Christ who was born over 2000 years ago as a fulfillment of the prophecies of ancient times. These prophecies were speaking of the true spiritual nature and need of mankind. May Christ draw you out of the Egypt of your own sins and the slavery of your fears.

The ancient Israelites were afraid to go out and head for the promised land. They wanted to stay as slaves in Egypt. They were scared to death to cross the Red Sea when the waters rolled back. They thought they were going to be drowned. They were afraid to wander in the wilderness. Each step of the way they said to Moses, "Take us back home." Of course, it is a dangerous and fearsome thing to be a human being, to live in a dangerous and fearsome world. St. Paul said, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you." Remember this, and with faith in your hearts, with courage and honesty go boldly into the new year. You will be amazed and filled with joy at what God has in store for your own benefit.

A great spokesman for the Christian faith and for freedom in the Western World recited some lines from a poem at the very beginning of the dark days of World War II. In his Christmas broadcast in 1939 King George VI of Great Britain spoke these words, "And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, 'give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Go out in the darkness and put your hand in the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!" May you all do the same. Put your hand in the hand of God and walk with honesty and courage into the new year.