New Years and New Creation

I have no idea whether or not this is an original idea but I was contemplating today that every New Year is an exercise in failed hope which, for a believer, lifts his eyes towards the hope of new creation. Let me explain.... Every year, there is so much contemplation on the mistakes and hardships of the past year and hopes for ease and prosperity of the new year. A new year is viewed as a new start, a time when you can start fresh and mold your life into the perfection that you dreamed of in the past year and all the years before that. This is why the custom of making resolutions for the new year has become so common in the Western World. However, what every person meets in the new year is nothing but renewed sorrow, pain, loneliness and a continuing sense of sinfulness (whether one realizes this or not). After such high hopes for a bright and comfortable new year, the hopes are dashed as one problem or another creeps up and dashes our hopes against the rocks on the shores of this life.

Amid all the despair and spoiled hopes year after year there is a ray of light that pierces this darkness, a hope that has broken through the cloud and fog of this shadowy place that shows us that there is something better. This long and continuous cycle of old year ending and new year beginning points us towards the final ending and the final beginning. God promises us in passages such as Isaiah 25, 65 and Revelation 21 that this world which we now live in is not permanent nor perfect. In fact, it is so imperfect and it's foundations are so rotted away that it must be recreated if it is to accurately display the beauty of the one who creates it. And so, there will be one final ending when death, pain, sorrow, all the struggles and anguish of this life will be wiped away and we who are chosen by God will step into the new world of infinite beauty, joy and delight in our Sovereign Creator and Redeemer. Finally we will live fully in the light of God's glory and will delight in all around us that perfectly points us toward that which ultimately fills us with delight. Currently, we only conceive of this future dimly but because of God's spirit working from within, we see that this hope and the very first blossoms of this new creation are beginning to shine on us now. Have a wonderful and happy New Year in anticipation of the fulfillment of our New Life in Christ!


6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined And he will swallow up on this mountainthe covering that is cast over all peoples,the veil that is spread over all nations.8 He will swallow up death forever;and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,for the Lord has spoken.9 It will be said on that day,“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.This is the Lord; we have waited for him;let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”10 For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain,and Moab shall be trampled down in his place,as straw is trampled down in a dunghill. [1]11 And he will spread out his hands in the midst of itas a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim,but the Lord will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill [2] of his hands.12 And the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down,lay low, and cast to the ground, to the dust.

-Isaiah 25:6-12