Finding hope on bluest of Mondays
DO you wish you could skip over January? Some months are full of anticipation and excitement – like the run up to Christmas or summer holidays, but January can feel like a month to endure and just get through. Maybe you’re relieved the calendar will soon turn a page.
The third Monday in January is called Blue Monday, for some the most depressing day of the year, when the post-Christmas reality bites.
You realise you’ve put on weight over the festivities, the credit card bill lands, and maybe you look back on time with family and friends that didn’t go as well as you hoped.
I think we can respond in one of two ways – hide or get active. You may be inclined to stay in, cut back and wait it out. Alas, not being bears or tortoises, hibernation is not a human possibility!
Alternatively, we may take on the new year with fresh determination – to join a gym, lose some pounds or book a holiday!
But what about the Christmas hangover? How do we deal with the burdens of a new year? In Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he includes the line “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors”.
Those used to saying the Lord’s prayer may be more familiar with asking for forgiveness for sins or trespasses, and whilst that’s a fair translation, I wonder if we lose some of the weight of the word “debt”.
The burden of debt is something we owe. It can hang around our necks, be always on our mind, whether it is a bill we’ll struggle to pay, or an offence we have given that weighs us down.
Yet Christmas didn’t just bring indulgence. Jesus came to bring hope – hope of God’s presence through our struggles, hope of forgiveness for our sins, and hope of a new future – a new kingdom.
That doesn’t magic our struggles away, like some fairy godmother’s wand, but it reminds us that when we turn to God we are not alone in our struggles, that the burden of guilt can be lifted when we trust in Jesus’s death on the cross, and that however bleak the winter months can feel, God has promised to renew our world.
You may have noticed that the Lord’s prayer included the assumption that we forgive those who owe us – those who have wronged us. How is that possible? Another verse in the Bible (from Colossians) says “forgive as the Lord forgave you”.
It is as we receive God’s forgiveness, like the lifting of a burden of debt, that we can share that forgiveness with others. May this provide hope, on even the bluest of Mondays.
As we receive God’s forgiveness, we can share that forgiveness with others.