2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.
Today is the Second Sunday after Christmas. It is also the second day of a brand new year. In all my years of preaching here I don’t recall ever preaching about the New Year and what it means. So I thought I’d try that today.
Various cultures have always celebrated the ending of the old year and the beginning of a new one. The ancient Babylonians celebrated in Spring at the vernal equinox – the day when the light and the darkness were equally balanced. The Chinese chose the second new moon after the winter solstice (for some reason I don’t know), while the Egyptians marked the new year from the Nile’s first flood each year. The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, can fall any time, usually in either September or October.
If it had been left up to me I think I might have set the start of the new year at the winter solstice— when the world is at its darkest and then signals that humankind is not, after all, to be left in the dark forever by the return of the sun and light. But then, no one asked me.
The Romans originally celebrated the start of another year, like the Babylonians, at the vernal equinox, but over the centuries they bounced their New Year celebration around several times while adjusting their yearly calendar. They finally settled on the first day of January, the month named for the god Janus, the two-faced god who looks both backward to what has been and forward, to what will come.
Today, we in the western world still celebrate by looking both backward and forward on January 1st although few of us still worship Janus. Any marking of a “new year” is like drawing lines on a map. The lines are purely imaginary and only exist by common consent. Nothing marks the earth itself, and no visible cataclysmic events mark the turning of one year into another. It is simply an arbitrarily chosen turning point that we all agree to observe.
Since New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are not religious holidays we don’t have any particular scriptures for this time. There are a number of scriptures referring to instituting a “new thing,” or “leaving the old things behind us.” There are even a couple about “starting anew,” but before we can find the right scriptures we need to decide just what it is that the New Year is all about.
We tell ourselves it’s all about that second – or third, or fourth – chance. Starting all over again. All those things we believe we failed at in the last year can come around again and we’ll get another chance to make them right. That’s the “looking-behind-us” view of a brand new year.
How about if we consider really leaving the past in the past? Let it go. How about if – instead of dragging our past mistakes and short-comings along with us forever – we simply leave them in the past and turn and face the future with an open mind and an open heart? What might we become if we open ourselves to whatever God has for us today instead of trailing our past failures along everywhere we go?
We are, by and large, the accumulated years of all that others have told us about ourselves—and maybe a bit of what we have told ourselves. And for some human reason we tend to hang on the longest to any derogatory things we’ve been told.
A young girl, told she is unattractive, will somewhere deep inside still believe that when she is a grandmother. A boy, told that he is stupid, will fight against that assessment forever, in spite of successes and praise of his adult self.
But – people can change – and we do -- but it's not always easy.
Perhaps we insist on New Year’s celebrations because we recognize our deep need to somewhere, somehow, start again without all that ugly baggage—to leave our errors and misinformation in the past.
Maybe there is a scripture for the New Year—maybe this is it;
“No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”
This is of course, one of Jesus’ parables. This particular version is from Luke’s gospel, but it can be found in all three of the synoptics, and as I’ve mentioned in the past, when something shows up in three of the four gospels that generally means it was seen as an important teaching by the early church, and we are to pay attention to it.
Maybe this is what New Year celebrations are about—creating new wineskins to hold the new wine of new insights, new understandings, new aspirations.
Did you notice that word aspiration in the last sentence? I used it deliberately. To aspire is to dream, to work toward something seemingly out of reach. But did you think about how that word comes from the same root as spirit? To aspire to something better is to have the Spirit breathe on us and create a longing for it in order to move us toward that something.
When we are given a new dream, it doesn’t work to try to tack it onto an old us. Like Jesus’ new patch on an old wineskin it will just tear it apart. The thing about old wineskins is they have lost their elasticity. They’re too fragile to contain new wine and the expansion that comes from fermentation. Yeast is a living thing and old wineskins can't contain that new life. A new vision needs a new person, a new vehicle – one that is capable of expanding to hold a growing new life within it.
We cannot create a brand new us just by willing it. But we can if we invite God into the process. We can especially do this if it is God calling us in the first place to become that new person. We can open up the old and be prepared to welcome in the new.
If we are stuck with a lifetime assortment of “I can’ts” it doesn't work to just work around them, we have to leave them behind. I can’t -- I’m not good enough -- we’ve always done it this way -- everyone says...; all of these are aspiration killers.
But if we aspire to become the new creatures in Christ that Paul talks about in the quote from 2nd Corinthians with which I started this message, then we have to stop hauling all that old baggage around—leave it in the past so our hands are open to embrace what God puts before us.
Even if we think we are pretty good as we are (and maybe we are) then we can still embrace God’s new gifts if we open ourselves and our hearts. There are always new ideas, new dreams to embrace.
Here’s one more scripture we can add to our collection of New Year verses. It’s from Isaiah, this time, chapter 43, vv. 18-19:
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Open your heart and your mind and allow yourself to become that new thing that God is calling you to become. Open your arms to embrace all the challenges and blessings that are waiting out there all around you – for behold, new things have come.
Happy New Year, and may it be a year full of blessings.
Amen.
Various cultures have always celebrated the ending of the old year and the beginning of a new one. The ancient Babylonians celebrated in Spring at the vernal equinox – the day when the light and the darkness were equally balanced. The Chinese chose the second new moon after the winter solstice (for some reason I don’t know), while the Egyptians marked the new year from the Nile’s first flood each year. The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, can fall any time, usually in either September or October.
If it had been left up to me I think I might have set the start of the new year at the winter solstice— when the world is at its darkest and then signals that humankind is not, after all, to be left in the dark forever by the return of the sun and light. But then, no one asked me.
The Romans originally celebrated the start of another year, like the Babylonians, at the vernal equinox, but over the centuries they bounced their New Year celebration around several times while adjusting their yearly calendar. They finally settled on the first day of January, the month named for the god Janus, the two-faced god who looks both backward to what has been and forward, to what will come.
Today, we in the western world still celebrate by looking both backward and forward on January 1st although few of us still worship Janus. Any marking of a “new year” is like drawing lines on a map. The lines are purely imaginary and only exist by common consent. Nothing marks the earth itself, and no visible cataclysmic events mark the turning of one year into another. It is simply an arbitrarily chosen turning point that we all agree to observe.
Since New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are not religious holidays we don’t have any particular scriptures for this time. There are a number of scriptures referring to instituting a “new thing,” or “leaving the old things behind us.” There are even a couple about “starting anew,” but before we can find the right scriptures we need to decide just what it is that the New Year is all about.
We tell ourselves it’s all about that second – or third, or fourth – chance. Starting all over again. All those things we believe we failed at in the last year can come around again and we’ll get another chance to make them right. That’s the “looking-behind-us” view of a brand new year.
How about if we consider really leaving the past in the past? Let it go. How about if – instead of dragging our past mistakes and short-comings along with us forever – we simply leave them in the past and turn and face the future with an open mind and an open heart? What might we become if we open ourselves to whatever God has for us today instead of trailing our past failures along everywhere we go?
We are, by and large, the accumulated years of all that others have told us about ourselves—and maybe a bit of what we have told ourselves. And for some human reason we tend to hang on the longest to any derogatory things we’ve been told.
A young girl, told she is unattractive, will somewhere deep inside still believe that when she is a grandmother. A boy, told that he is stupid, will fight against that assessment forever, in spite of successes and praise of his adult self.
But – people can change – and we do -- but it's not always easy.
Perhaps we insist on New Year’s celebrations because we recognize our deep need to somewhere, somehow, start again without all that ugly baggage—to leave our errors and misinformation in the past.
Maybe there is a scripture for the New Year—maybe this is it;
“No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”
This is of course, one of Jesus’ parables. This particular version is from Luke’s gospel, but it can be found in all three of the synoptics, and as I’ve mentioned in the past, when something shows up in three of the four gospels that generally means it was seen as an important teaching by the early church, and we are to pay attention to it.
Maybe this is what New Year celebrations are about—creating new wineskins to hold the new wine of new insights, new understandings, new aspirations.
Did you notice that word aspiration in the last sentence? I used it deliberately. To aspire is to dream, to work toward something seemingly out of reach. But did you think about how that word comes from the same root as spirit? To aspire to something better is to have the Spirit breathe on us and create a longing for it in order to move us toward that something.
When we are given a new dream, it doesn’t work to try to tack it onto an old us. Like Jesus’ new patch on an old wineskin it will just tear it apart. The thing about old wineskins is they have lost their elasticity. They’re too fragile to contain new wine and the expansion that comes from fermentation. Yeast is a living thing and old wineskins can't contain that new life. A new vision needs a new person, a new vehicle – one that is capable of expanding to hold a growing new life within it.
We cannot create a brand new us just by willing it. But we can if we invite God into the process. We can especially do this if it is God calling us in the first place to become that new person. We can open up the old and be prepared to welcome in the new.
If we are stuck with a lifetime assortment of “I can’ts” it doesn't work to just work around them, we have to leave them behind. I can’t -- I’m not good enough -- we’ve always done it this way -- everyone says...; all of these are aspiration killers.
But if we aspire to become the new creatures in Christ that Paul talks about in the quote from 2nd Corinthians with which I started this message, then we have to stop hauling all that old baggage around—leave it in the past so our hands are open to embrace what God puts before us.
Even if we think we are pretty good as we are (and maybe we are) then we can still embrace God’s new gifts if we open ourselves and our hearts. There are always new ideas, new dreams to embrace.
Here’s one more scripture we can add to our collection of New Year verses. It’s from Isaiah, this time, chapter 43, vv. 18-19:
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Open your heart and your mind and allow yourself to become that new thing that God is calling you to become. Open your arms to embrace all the challenges and blessings that are waiting out there all around you – for behold, new things have come.
Happy New Year, and may it be a year full of blessings.
Amen.
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