From the Pulpit: Why do we celebrate the new year when we do?

Look out your window on New Year’s Day, and you will probably wonder the same thing I do: “Why are we celebrating a new year in the cold of winter?” It doesn’t make any sense. Nature is sleeping and squirrels are hibernating, and humans are offering toasts and wishing each other a “Happy New Year!”

If you do a little research online, you will learn all about things like the original Julian calendar versus the newer Gregorian calendar, why we have leap years and what determines a spring equinox. You will feel smart because you know January is named after the Roman god Janus, the two-faced god who looked both backward and forward. But you still won’t know why January is the considered the beginning of the year, other than that the Romans considered it the start of their civil year. 

Who wants to celebrate a new year based on a backward- and forward-looking false god that never existed in the first place? Nor do I want to move my new year celebration to the spring and base it on the spring equinox. That isn’t a fixed date, and if you have ever been to the southern hemisphere you know that when we are celebrating winter, they are celebrating summer, and vice versa. Changing the new year to the first day of the northern hemisphere spring would fix nothing. 

So here is my solution: celebrate new year all year long. No, don’t expect cities to hold parades with marching bands, floats made out of flowers, and big balloons (or is that last one for Thanksgiving only? Whatever!) Instead, celebrate that you can be made new in Christ all year long. As it says in 1 Cor. 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed and the new has come.” 

Celebrate the fact that if you are a Christian, you have been born again by water and the Word. Every day you can repent of your sins, every day God forgives you and gives you a fresh start. Celebrate the fact that as it says in Lam. 3:22-23, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!” There is no hangover associated with that kind of a daily new year celebration. So “Happy New Year!” every day in Christ Jesus to you!