New Year
Where I live, today is designated as the first day of a new year. Lots of talk about closing out one year and having a fresh start in a new one. People talking about resolving to make life changes. But you know, it's just an arbitrary designation. There's no cosmic or seasonal rationale for the day. Some cultures put the beginning of a new year in the springtime, which arguably makes much more sense.
Nevertheless, here we are with an arbitrary date, in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere and the middle of summer in the southern hemisphere, and it's called New Year's Day. Maybe the arbitrariness contributes to the near-universal failure of those new year's resolutions. How serious can we take them, when they're based on nothing but an arbitrary date?
But we don't want to throw out the whole idea of new beginnings. The date on the calendar doesn't matter, but making a genuine new beginning-that matters! Shutting down what came before, starting not a new year but a new life.
God's word has a little bit about the new year: it was to be two weeks before Passover. (Leviticus 23:5 - Notice, it's in the springtime!) But this was to give prominence to the Passover, which was to be a commemoration of deliverance from Egypt. There's nothing about resolutions or new beginnings connected to the start of the year.
You're way ahead of me, right? You know that God's word does have a LOT about new beginnings. Making changes. So much so that it's talked about in the most extreme language.
Jesus: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3) Nicodemus recognized how extreme this statement was and questioned how it can actually happen. Can people really begin again?
Peter: "According to his [God's] great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Peter 1:3) Picking up Jesus's extraordinary language, and by the way answering Nicodemus's question. Yes, not only can we, we have been born again.
Paul: "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ... Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:7, 13-14) What has gone before is abandoned-it's all just rubbish. (verse 8). There is a whole new direction, an entirely new course of life.
Paul again: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:3-4) Has familiarity with these verses dulled our sense of how extreme this is? This isn't an isolated passage! The idea of dying and being reborn a new creation is all over the New Testament. We know this, but we may have lost sight of how much of an upheaval is being talked about.
John the Baptist: "Repent!" (Matthew 3:2) That means to change! He goes on to command, "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance." (verse 8) He's not talking about something superficial, and he's harsh in his rebuke of these who don't make a life change. Not something trivial, not superficial.
We could go on. Jesus, Paul, Peter and other apostles say over and over that we have to treat this change as we are dying and then living a whole new life. Way more than a "resolution".
Resolutions nearly always fail. And if we're honest with ourselves, we know our commitment to the Lord can also waver, falter, fail. Can, and does. What then? By the astonishing grace of God, when this happens we are invited to recommit, repent again, change again. Jesus said to Peter that he would fail and deny him, but he also told him, "I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." (Luke 22:32) I quoted a few verses from Romans 6 earlier; go back and read the whole chapter-it's addressed to people who have already committed in baptism, already have "died with Christ", but may find a necessity to re-commit.
What the world offers as a new beginning is, well it's basically nothing. A date on the calendar. What the living God offers is a way out of death and into life. Your friends may ask you about whether you've made any resolutions. Your Lord asks you whether you've made a commitment to a new life in him. Much more important conversation! He's waiting for your reply.
Love, Paul