(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “It’s New!”, originally shared on January 3, 2025. It was the 344th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
We’ve begun a new year! So what? Today,
we’re going to find out.
I began this new year with a bad cold, and
Sally’s took great care of me. That’s why we’re getting our video/blog/podcast
uploaded late this week.
A colleague, unaware of my illness, posted
an appropriate prayer on Facebook with these words above it “When a man gets a
cold.”
The prayer itself was labeled, “A Prayer for
a Person Near Death.”
I won’t argue with that. Except to say that
I heard of a study that said that men experience things like the common cold
differently than women. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m going with it for
now. 😊
Anyway, the new year has begun and it’s
already a doozy. A mass shooting in New Orleans, a deadly fireworks explosion
in Hawaii, gang killings at a memorial birthday party in New York, and a
suicide and explosion in a Tesla Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel in Las
Vegas, are the stories that have dominated the news at the beginning of
2025.
A “new year” sounds like a fresh start, like
happy days are here again, or at least are coming. But is New Year’s Day any
different than New Year’s Eve?
Maybe for those who partied too hard on New
Year’s Eve it is. But in general, not really.
In fact, this year, the slogan I’ve seen
most often associated with the new year is, “Let’s Survive in ’25!”
Kind of a low bar, don’t you think? 😊
Maybe not. We’ll see. But, as I’ve said many
times, we may not know what the future holds, but we do know Who knows the
future.
Yet, it has often been discouraging for me
to see how quickly people who have been at least nominal Christians for many
years will abandon the real comfort that God gives to all who will receive it
and replace it with the hollow expectations of this world.
For example, the Christian celebration of
Christmas is not a day, or even just the night before a day, but a season, as
in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. The Christmas season runs from
December 24th to January 5th, from Christmas Eve to the
Eve of the day of the Epiphany of Our Lord.
Christmas Day,
December 25th, happened over a week ago. For an increasing number of
people in our world, that was it. Christmas was over. The presents were opened
and are now put away. The lights were taken down and packed-up. The decorations
are history for another year.
Some people held out
until New Years Day, but even then the tree already seemed a little out of
place, and now it’s down and it will be out with the next trash pick-up.
Even some Christians ended Christmas on
Christmas Eve. “We didn’t have a
Christmas Day worship service,” they say, “because, well, it’s a lot of work
and we weren’t sure people would come even for a Christmas Eve service, much
less for a service on Christmas Day, because people are busy and have out of
town family and guests to take care of, and we need to put stuff away when we
have people to do it, or just we don’t care about Church seasons”, and so on.
For others, Christmas is over when the
season of commercial preparations for parties and shopping, and presents ends,
and then when it’s done, it’s really done.
In fact, some businesses and TV programs
marked the 12 days of Christmas as a countdown to Christmas.
So, now
Christians have Christmas pretty much all to ourselves and those with whom we
share it, until January 6th!
There’s no more
holiday stress. The long nightmare of expectations and over-indulgence is over.
Now we know the
Christmas blessing and we open our hearts to receive it for these 12 whole days
and share it with the world!
So continue to have
a Merry Christmas, continue to sing the Christmas hymns and carols, and don’t
be embarrassed for celebrating Christmas as a Christian.
Be counter-cultural.
Don’t take down your Christmas tree, your lights, or your decorations yet.
Leave them up until January 6th, and be a witness if you are asked
why, or when you get funny looks. 😊
As baseball legend
Yogi Berra said, “It ain't over till it's over.” 😊
As Jesus said, in Matthew 5:14-15,
14 “You
are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No
one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the
lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.
Be a witness. Be a reflector of the light,
the light that came into the world, the light that is Jesus Christ.
John describes it in terms of the birth of
Jesus, in the reading from John which some churches will not have heard read
yet, but will be read in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming
Sunday, John 1:1-18. In John 1:3-5, we hear,
3All
things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into
being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life
was the light of all people.
5The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
A new year is an astronomical description.
It does not mean, by itself, that anything of substance is going to change. But
it is a point at which people consider making changes to their lives. People
will make resolutions, most of which will be gone by spring.
Advertisers use the word “new” to appeal to
our desire to have something that is the best, something that other people
don’t have. “New” products only have to be slightly different than their “old”
version. “New” suggests youth and optimism, because we automatically associate
“new” with “better”. That is the myth of human progress.
We like the idea of a “new” year even though
we know that it will bring humongous challenges.
This year, why not consider something
significant: a new life? A life that can only come from God.
What difference will it make?
I read a story a few weeks ago about a
pastor who was asked to preach and lead worship in a small church way out in
the boondocks. He was invited to have breakfast before worship in the cabin
that was the home of one of the church members.
Before the meal, the preacher asked his host
if he would offer a blessing.
The man agreed and began, “Lord, I hate
buttermilk.”
The preacher shifted a bit, but the man
continued, “And, Lord, you know that I hate raw white flower. And, Lord, you
know that I especially hate eating lard.
“But, Lord, you know that I do love
biscuits.
“So, as we enjoy these fresh biscuits here
on this table, made out of buttermilk, raw white flower, and lard, we ask that,
when we have challenges in our lives, we remember that we just might not know
the whole story yet. Let us continue to live as your people, and to remember
what the Bible says in Romans 8:28,
28 We know that all
things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according
to his purpose.
And all at that table said, ‘Amen’”.
This year, let the “new” in the new year be
you.
Open your heart and be made new. Jesus said,
in John 3:5-8,
5 Jesus answered, “Very
truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of
water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and
what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished
that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind
blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where
it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the
Spirit.”
You belong. You belong to God. God has died
for you, only be transformed by God’s gift.
Richard Halvorsen, who was a Presbyterian
minister and served as the Chaplain to the United States Senate in the 1980’s
and ‘90’s once said,
“In the beginning the
church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then
the church moved to Greece where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome where
it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a
culture. And, finally, it moved to
America where it became an enterprise.”
In this new year, be a part of a fellowship
of men and women centering on the living Christ.
Repent and open your heart, your true self,
to God’s transformation today. Live as someone who has received the gift of new
life as part of God’s people, as in 1 Peter 2:9-10,
9 But you are a chosen
race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you
may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light.
10 Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s
people;
once you had not
received mercy,
but now you have
received mercy.
Make the new year a year of significance. We
have good news to share! Life can change for
the better. Jesus will do it if you let him in. The deepest darkness is
overcome by the light. Christ is born! Our redemption is nearer now that when
it was first proclaimed!
Let’s live into this
new year with a new focus on the awe and wonder of the love of God. Let us be
reflectors of the light that is Jesus Christ, share the Good News of new life,
and bring a focus on a living relationship with the one true living God in
Jesus Christ this year, forgiven and reconciled with God and with one another.
Let’s live in Christ
in this new year as a new creation, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17,
17 So
if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed
away; see, everything has become new!
This year, let’s
be new.
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