New Year’s Eve has a different kind of feel to it than other times that we celebrate during the year. It doesn’t have the hope of Christmas, or the joy of Resurrection Morning, the sense of reverence of Thanksgiving, the national pride of July 4. It’s not really even like a birthday. The revelry that people engage in tonight is a different kind of revelry, often one touched with despair - more like a wake - an occasion of celebration tinged with regret and grief. It’s a time, as we stand between two years,
when we feel a natural urge to look over our shoulders, to see the results of our labor, to see what fruits what been produced by us in the past year.
It’s a time that belongs to memory: some incidents we recall fondly, yet as we evaluate the past, we also see unfulfilled hopes and dreams, unkept promises - we recall the magic of the past, perhaps, with regret that it could not remain with us. We remember unfulfilled relationships and unfinished business.
So much of the drinking and carrying on that we see tonight is unveiled as an attempt to forget - to cover up in the celebration the emptiness, the pain, the remorse and regret that we feel from the past.
New Year’s Eve is not a holiday of the church. And yet scripture does speak to us tonight. It has a special message for us who live on the far end of the field, who are attempting to evaluate the fruits of our labor; who, perhaps find our lives wanting; and especially those who have trouble facing the New Year because we are still so stuck in the regrets of the past.
The first part of its message is the call for repentance. The word means, "to turn around and head off in a new direction." It is important to learn from the past. But it is even more important that we not belong to it. We can’t be like Lot’s wife, always looking over our shoulders, until we are frozen in the past, unable to move forward any longer. Elisha was called to leave the plow in the field; Matthew was called to leave his booth; Peter and James were called from their nets. Jesus said, "He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not worthy of me." Hebrews says that we are sojourners in a land that, in a sense, will always be foreign to us, because we belong to a kingdom of the future, of God’s future - we are always journeying toward that kingdom and that future. We cannot remain in the past, either in its glory or in its regret. We need to turn, and to set our faces elsewhere.
That "elsewhere" is the future. That is the second part of the message. The world fears the future. It seems so unreliable, so unpredictable, so uncontrollable. It seems that not many like a dark night, full of dangerous things. The future is unseen and unseeable,
like in those dark nights of our childhood when we hid under our covers because we didn’t know and couldn’t see the monsters that may have been lurking in the dark. The monsters of the future seem more real than God’s grace and His guiding hand. Natural disasters, poverty, illness, and separation - they all seem to crouch in waiting for us, and so we are tempted to look to the safe covers of the past, or the familiar, to protect us.
Yet the word of the Gospel is that the future belongs to God. He is waiting there for us.
Our security is in him - not in a past that we can’t recapture it anyway.
Our future is a future in God - so there is nothing to fear in it. Our future is a hopeful one. The New Year is a time of promise. It is there that God’s promises will be fulfilled in us and in this world. We are being called to the future - God’s future - just as Abraham and Sarah were called to journey into their promise, or as Moses and Miriam were, or Peter, or Paul, or any others of the saints. We are being called into a bright future, because in that future we will only draw closer and closer to Him.
Tonight is a time for remembrance. It is a time to remember God’s faithfulness, as well as our own mistakes, so that we can learn from them. It is also a time for repentance, to walk a new path, a way that is closer to the kingdom, a time for dedicating ourselves anew to God’s work. It is a time for dreaming, for envisioning, a time for hope, a time for planning. What will the New Year be like? We don’t know. But we do know that it belongs to God. In it He is calling us further into His likeness, further into His kingdom, further into His promises, further into His presence.
I’m reminded of the Paul and Silas in that Philippian jail. After the great earthquake, and all the prisoners were freed from their shackles and chains and nobody left the prison. The prison guard, who would have taken his own life if even one of the prisoners had escaped, realizing the miracle God had performed said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Paul says, “Believe! On the Lord Jesus Christ. And thou shall be saved!” He says to the man, what you’ve got to do is believe.
After experiencing this great earthquake. Seeing this jail shaken. After being shaken himself.
Crying, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Their response is, “Believe on the name of the Lord. Jesus Christ. And thou. Shalt be saved.” Notice Paul didn’t tell him. That you need to understand. But he said. You need to believe. But too many us. Want to understand first. Before we’ll believe. What want it to make sense. Before we’ll say yes. And I’ve said this before. You are not saved head first. But you are saved heart first. For Romans. Chapter 10. Verse 9 says. That if thou shalt believe in thine heart. That God has raised Jesus. From the dead. Thou shalt be. Saved.
So I want you to know tonight. That you don’t have to have it. All figured out. Up in your head. You just be sure. You believe it. Down in. Your heart. Don’t put your head. Before your heart. I want you to know. That just because. I have a Doctorate. In Divinity. Just because I’ve studied. Eschatology. Deontology. Epistemology. And Theology. I’ve got to be honest. With you. There is still a whole lot. That I don’t understand. Up in my head. But I believe it. Down in my heart.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND. HOW GOD COMES OUT OF NOWHERE. AND STEPS OUT ON NOTHING. AND BREAKS THE SILENCE. OF A NOT YET UNIVERSE. WITH THE SOUND OF HIS OWN VOICE. AND SAYS LET THERE BE. AND LIGHT COMES. SKIPPING DOWN THE DARKNESS. I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT IN MY HEAD. BUT YET I BELIEVE IT. DOWN IN MY HEART.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND. HOW GOD SAID. LET THERE BE. AND BIRDS STARTED FLYING. FISH STARTED SWIMMING.
THE SOLAR SYSTEM STARTED TWIRLING. BUT I BELIEVE IT. DOWN IN MY HEART.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND. HOW THE LORD. JESUS CHRIST. CAME THROUGH. 42 GENERATIONS.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND. HOW HE PULLED OFF. HIS ROYAL MAJESTY. UP IN GLORY. WRAPPED HIMSELF UP. IN A BABY’S BODY. GOT ON BOARD. THE STORMY SEA. OF PREGNACY. AND RODE THE STORMY SEA.
FOR NINE LONG MONTHS. GOT OFF. ONE COLD DECEMBER MORNING. IN BETHLEHEM OF JUDEA.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND. BUT I BELIEVE. DOWN IN MY HEART.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND. HOW. HE HEALED THE SICK. AND RAISED THE DEAD. BUT I BELIEVE IT DOWN IN MY HEART.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND. HOW HE DIED. OUT ON CALVARY. BUT I BELIEVE IT. DOWN IN MY HEART.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND. HOW HE DIED. UNTIL THE SUN. REFUSED TO SHINE. I DON’T UNDERSTAND. HOW GOD. RAISES UP. A DEAD JESUS. EARLY. EASTER. SUNDAY MORNING. BUT I BELIEVE IT. WAY DOWN. IN MY HEART.
That’s why. My hope. Is built on nothing else. Than Jesus’ blood. And His righteousness. I dare not trust. The sweetest frame. But holy. Lean. On Jesus’ name!
That name. Which is above every name. Praise His name. At that name. Every knee shall bow. And every tongue confess. Praise His name. There’s something. About the name. Jesus. It is. The sweetest. Name. I know. Praise His name. I don’t know about you. But I feel like. Praising. His name. In a hospital room. Praise His name. In a court room. Praise His name.
When folks are lying on you. Praise His name. When bills are do. Praise His name. He kept you alive in 2005. Praise His name. He’s in the mix in 2006. Praise His name. He wipes tears from your eyes. Praise His name. He lifts heavy burdens. Praise His name. He makes ways out of no way. Praise His He died for you. And He died for me. Praise His name.
