For many years
our American culture has looked at New Year’s Eve as a time for celebration.
For some this involves drunkenness and wild behavior. Of course, the bible is full of warnings about
this kind of behavior. For example, in 1 Peter 4:3 we hear: “You
have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in
licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.”
New Year's festivities are not new. The ancients celebrated a new year in
many different ways, including worshipping certain Gods at the beginning of the
year in order to get favor and sometimes for their destiny to be revealed.
Even those who have not known God in their lives, are encouraged by St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” While we enjoy the days of Christian Celebration in our lives like Easter and Christmas, they are certainly worthy of our joy, but they do tend to come and go before we know it. The season of Lent, which is the six weeks leading up to Easter gives us more time to think things through. It helps to prepare us in our life in Christ through prayer, penance, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial leading up to when Jesus is crucified and resurrected on Easter Day.
We have shared recently about the season of Advent, the coming of Christ, leading us up to the Nativity of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It begins four weeks before Christmas, but it is not celebrated in all Christian Churches. This is a time of reflection and renewal for us as we anticipate the coming of The Lord.
Let’s stop and think a bit more about the celebration of the New Year. Like the time of self-denial and repentance during Lent, folks do make New Year’s resolutions with the idea of making a change in their lives in some fashion to give them a fresh start for the year. Would you consider making every day the first day of the year to come? Or maybe you already practice this kind of thinking. You know, “today is the first day of the rest of your life” kind of mentality.
We are all called to be so connected to God through Christ and His Holy Spirit, that we can communicate with Him daily, minute by minute in our lives. Scripture speaks to us in so many ways about this. In Psalm 51:10 and 12,the psalmist says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
In Romans 12:2, St. Paul reminds us: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” St. Paul goes on to remind us in Colossians 3:8-10: “But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”
So the celebration days of all kind are good if they celebrate God’s blessings to us in our lives. However, in order to be able to truthfully celebrate, we must live ninety-nine percent of our time seeking God through Christ and His Spirit in all that we think and do. Daily discipline in the Lord makes the celebration times all the more meaningful and joyful. HAPPY NEW DAY!
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