New Year's Every Day

The following appeared in the January issue of the Wheatland Parish newsletter.

            Did you ever wonder why we celebrate the new year?

            It’s not like there’s anything that special about January 1^st, really.  We don’t mark anything in particular with it.  It’s not the anniversary of anything.  There’s no person or group of people that we honor with it.  There’s no reason to start the new year on January 1^st.  We could as easily start the new year in April or September.  I’m sure there’s some historical reason why January was chosen for the new year, but I also suspect that it was largely an arbitrary decision.

            From a practical standpoint, all a new year does is provide us with a more practical way of keeping track of things.  We have to start over again with counting months at some point, or we’d be in month number 24,133.  There’s no reason to have a big party just because we now write a “one” for the month and add one to the number of the year.  Yet, we do, and we have for a lot longer than I can remember.  Why?

            I think a lot of it is that the new year symbolizes something for us.  A new year symbolizes a chance to start over again.  It’s a chance to do things differently from the way we’ve done them in the past.  That’s why we make New Year’s Resolutions, after all.  The new year symbolizes a chance to stop doing the things we know we should not do, and to start doing the things we know we should do.  We look at the new year as a chance to be the people we really want to be, rather than the people we actually are.

            That’s okay.  In fact, there are ways in which it’s a good thing.  Sometimes we need some incentive to make changes in our lives.  If a new year provides us with that incentive, there’s nothing wrong with that.

            What we need to remember, though, is that the chance to change ourselves is available to us all year round.  That’s one of the most incredible things about the sacrifice Jesus made for us.  The forgiveness that faith in Jesus offers us is not something that only happens once a year.  That forgiveness is available to us every day.  All we need to do is believe in Jesus as our Savior and sincerely ask for forgiveness.  If we come to Jesus with honest hearts and with a real desire to change, Jesus will give us forgiveness and will help us change.

            That does not mean that we’ll suddenly become perfect people.  There has not been a perfect person on earth since Jesus was here, and there will not be a perfect person on earth until Jesus comes back.  What it means, though, is that our attitude will change.  Our state of mind will change.  We will change.  Even though we will still make mistakes, we’ll be different people.  We’ll be better people.  We’ll be God’s people.

            It’s wonderful to celebrate the new year.  Remember, though, that we can have a new year any time.  All we need to do is believe in Jesus as our Savior and sincerely ask for forgiveness.  Any day that we do that can be New Year’s Day.