new-yearDavid Lipsy

Why celebrate the New Year? There’s no command or precedent for it in Scripture. The year changes and a calendar page is turned. It doesn’t commemorate any particular event. Besides, as Christians we don’t want to be associated with all the drunkenness and foolishness that often accompanies so-called New Year’s festivities.

Did you ever notice how God marks time in Scripture? Consider, for example, Exodus 12:2: “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.” God taught Israel how to mark time, using their deliverance from Egypt as their starting point, their New Year. Let’s try Genesis 11:10: “These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood.” Here someone’s birthday is marked in terms of years after the flood of Noah’s time. How about Ezra 6:15: “And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.” Here God measures time in terms of the reign of a certain king.

What event are our years measured against? You could hardly tell anymore, except perhaps on some official documents. Until recently, one would commonly read or write, “In the year of our Lord…” and follow those words with the year number (e.g., 2009, 2010, etc.). Throughout the world, everyone keeps track of the passing of time with respect to the birth of Jesus Christ (give or take a few years). Isn’t that striking? The Chinese have their calendar and New Year. Other cultures do, too. But when the world compares notes, when nations want to have a year name that everyone recognizes, they all revert to “the year of our Lord” even if it’s not explicitly mentioned. Did you ever wonder why?

Christianity has had an enormous impact on much of the world. People in positions of authority who had a say about the calendar presently used all over the world were related to Christianity. That’s the historical reason.

A more satisfying answer is this: we know that the living God has given to His Son, Jesus Christ, all authority in heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18). We also know God has also given all nations to the Lord Jesus (Dan. 7:14). Is it any surprise that, in His inscrutable wisdom and sovereign providence, matters have been so ordered that virtually all people must reference time in terms of the Son of God, Jesus Christ? Mere coincidence? “Coincidence is when we choose to keep God anonymous,” said a friend recently.

The question of the moment is whether your life is oriented on this same Christ, the Son of the living God. If that’s not true for me and for you, we had better make that the top priority on our list. God has a date with each of us on His itinerary. The calendar pages run out one day, don’t they? Some year will be our last; after that it’s the time where time is no more. Then what?

If you’re unsaved, wouldn’t it be something if 2010 became the “year of the Lord” for you, personally? Why wait for the inevitable? Seek the Lord now while you still have time. Repent before Him and cast yourself without reservation upon the mercies of God’s Son Jesus. Tomorrow, after all, might be just a day too late.

And for those of us who believe, has last year been a year centered on Him? Or was He just somewhere on the list of things that occupied our time and attention? If this was so, maybe we should start the year with fresh repentance and a resolution (in conscious dependence on the grace of God, Acts 5:31) that He would be at the top of each day’s matters of importance. If last year was a year of the Lord for us, let us give thanks and strive diligently that this year might build upon the last. What joy if, when we come to the last page of our life’s calendar, we won’t look back with regret but instead look forward with joyous anticipation for the transformation of the “year of our Lord” into “eternity with our Lord.”

Published by The Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, used with permission.