The Ending of the Year

 

Last-minute Christmas gifts are bought and wrapped. Family travels to its traditional destination, or else waits for relatives to arrive. Silent Night by candlelight rings out with heartfelt nostalgia in churches around the nation. Christmas dinner is enjoyed. Presents are opened. The magic fades, then is lit once more as the countdown to the New Year ticks down to zero. Happy New Year! Plans are drawn up, resolutions made, and hope kindled for a better future.

Eleven months later, the anticipation builds again. The hope, long since extinguished or dampened, now flares up again. Christmas and the New Year. Then another 365 days of vanity. Over and over, until you begin to stop and wonder - what's the point?

All is vanity.

All is vapor, mist, smoke, a striving after wind.

All will fade and crumble and die...

All but one thing.

VERBUM DOMINI MANET IN AETERNUM

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever. It really is all meaningless without our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh who dwelt among us. Christmas and the New Year will eventually become empty for you if they are built on nostalgia and unfounded hope (unless you are exceptionally good at lying to yourself).

But with Christ - crucified and risen from the dead - everything changes. Christmas is no longer meaninglessness through nostalgia, but rather the injection of meaning, of the eternal Word, into human flesh. In Jesus, there is a treasure that does not pass away. In Jesus, there are Words of power and promise that will not fade. In Jesus, the time spent with family, loving one another, takes on eternal value, as we strengthen and encourage one another toward the hard and narrow path. A path that, despite its difficulty, is the only path of peace and rest.

Silent night, holy night

Son of God, love's pure light

Radiant beams from Thy holy face

 With the dawn of redeeming grace

Jesus, Lord, at thy birth

Jesus, Lord at thy birth

We can sing these words in the hope that they will rekindle a magical Christmas feeling that we imagine we once had. We can make a New Year's Resolution in the hope that it will finally be the life change that we desperately need. We sinners can gather each year with our sinful families in the hope that this year, it will finally be a perfect and merry Christmas.

Or we can sing these words in the hope that Jesus, our Lord, has made peace with us by is his redeeming grace. We can resolve every day to repent of our sin and trust in the Word of God, not our efforts, to sanctify us little by little. We sinners can gather each year with our sinful families and pour out the love of Christ with one another, standing firm against the evil age, even as we see things continue to crumble around us.

Let's build our Christmas and New Year on the firm conviction that The Word of the Lord Endures Forever. And only the Word of the Lord Endures Forever. Put Jesus at the center of Christmas. Put Jesus at the center of the New Year. Make a resolution, or don't, but don't buy into the roller coaster of failed efforts and personal achievement. This self-justification is sin, and sin is lawlessness, and the end of those shameful attempts at impressing God is only death. Christ be praised that he has washed away those filthy rags we constantly try to impress him with! 

You are free. Now, as a baptized Son of God, a chosen inheritor of the resurrection of the body, pursue Christian discipline. Take the Word of the Lord incredibly seriously, because it is the only thing that endures forever. By all means, use the new year as a reminder to refocus on the Word of God and prayer. But take comfort! You're not a Christian - or even a better Christian - because of your discipline. You are a Christian because of the blood of the Lamb, which has forgiven you all of your sins. You are a Christian because he has washed you in Holy Baptism. Now, at peace with God, you may follow him and cling to him and make the best use of the new year. Not to find the longed-for level of spiritual excellence, but that you may learn your poverty and once again humble yourself to trust in Christ alone. That you may embrace and find joy in your good and God-given identity (if I can combine a few metaphors here):

A crippled, rotten, dirty, helpless beggar, with lamp and oil ready, standing at watch and awaiting the return of the Bridegroom.