Last Christmas Greetings
By T. Hardie, President
What a privilege it has been these last few years to include Christmas greetings to you all in our final newsletter for the year. This time it is bittersweet since, with my retirement coming at year-end, it will be my final chance to wish you all the best that Christmas brings from all of us here at The Rees-Jones Foundation. The sweet part though is that it comes with the sure knowledge that all of the relationships that have been established over the years will continue and the work of the Foundation under the leadership of Terese Stevenson will continue in ever-better and more impactful ways. So, from here, all is good and we rejoice in the season and the fact that our Lord has come.
Retirement does bring parting reflections, however. My tenure began almost 20 years ago when I made the decision to join the Rees-Jones family in the next chapters of their lives that included the establishment of the Foundation. It was exciting to think about, and the decision was completely without reservation. Deep down I knew their values and mine were aligned. That made it easy. And that has remained true throughout the ensuing years. So, now that my tenure is at an end, what more can I say? Only this, and there is no better time to say it than Christmas. We at The Rees-Jones Foundation are fueled by a common faith in a God who created us and loves us without condition. We see that love demonstrated at Christmas in the person of his son, born in the humblest of circumstances, who came to bring us life as part of the family of God, “who became flesh and made his dwelling among us. . . . who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
I have spent a lifetime trying to appreciate what that means. Jesus tried to make it simple for us. If we believe in him, if we love him, if we remain in him, he will produce through us unimaginable fruit. But how do we do this? First by appreciating the grace involved; that he really came to save us, to reconcile us to himself. In our sin, there is nothing we can do on our own to bridge that gap. He did it all. If we can come to appreciate that grace, it is then that we can begin to love him and express that love by truly loving each other sacrificially as he has loved us. And that brings us back to the reason we do what we do here at the Foundation.
Our world makes all of this difficult. It is increasingly divided. Everything we encounter tells us that there are people on our side and there is everybody else. Even the Christian community is co-opted by the loud voices of our divided culture. We believe we are right and therefore God must be on our side. What a dead end that is. So, instead, we must remind ourselves daily that our Lord calls us to be on his side, to follow him. Following him means for us at The Rees-Jones Foundation loving him by loving each other with love that extends across all divisions, to the least of his loved ones, the ones who look the least like us sometimes, the ones who disagree with us, the ones who are hardest to love. I know that has been our mission. Like everyone, we have failed that mission from time to time, but it is our guide and I am so grateful for the chance to have led and now leave in great hands a group so aligned in purpose and mission to serve our neighbors.
Merry Christmas to all as we look forward to the blessings God has in store for us in the coming year.
T. Hardie