“Then I saw a new heaven and a new
earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea
was no more…and he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all
things new.” –Rev. 21:1-6
Do you ever
want to just start over? Do you ever
want to put everything behind you and wipe the slate clean and begin anew? For many of us, that is what the New Year’s
celebration is all about. Putting the
old to rest and starting over. It’s a
chance to let the past stay in the past.
It’s a new year, anything can happen.
I can change, and not be bound by the mistakes of last year.
In the
Christian Church, there is a tradition of holding watchnight services at
certain times throughout the liturgical year, like the Advent/Christmas season,
and during Holy Week. Many churches do
the same on New Year’s Eve. It is a
vigil of prayer and resolution to begin the New Year with a new dedication and
commitment to growing in one’s faith.
(I know that
it would mean skipping out on those wonderful New Year’s Eve parties, but there
is usually plenty of pork and sauerkraut leftover anyway!)
The focus is
on renewing the covenant with the Lord who calls us to live in the world but to not be of the world. We can acknowledge and contemplate the past,
but we can also put it away from us. The
past can educate us and shape who we will become in the New Year, but the sins
of the past cannot be undone, they can only be forgiven, and the Lord forgives
us who are penitent, so let us forgive others who have wronged us as well.
And so the
assurance of the watchnight service, of the New Year, is the hope that is
renewed for who we can grow to become as children of the Lord, followers of
Jesus Christ in 2014. It is that Christ
“is with us always, even to the end of the age (Mt. 28:20).”
At any time,
in any place, for whatever reason, we can begin anew, we can start over. Because of a God who makes all things
new.
