An Old Fashion New Year
I wish to recast a song from one of Angela’s Christmas albums, “I just want an old fashion Christmas,” to “I just want an old fashion New Year’s celebration”. I walk back down memory lane 26 years to recall those wonderful New Years parties hosted by Jim and Sandy Bell. Going back 60 years I remember a New Years celebration in New Bedford, RI. Small churches in eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island gathered to sing praises to God, remember their past year of ministry and cast visions for the year to come. In 1963 I came alone to announce that Joyce and I have a daughter four days old. Her name is Joy Carol – a “Joy to the world.”
There are no New Year celebrations as such in the Bible but Isaiah speaks of three “New Years” for us to celebrate. Captives in Babylon were used to seeing the massive idols Bel and Nebo paraded on carts on a Babylonian New Year (Isa 46). Taunted to sing songs of Zion, they refused (Ps. 137). Isaiah announced Cyrus as God’s anointed shepherd to free Israel so that they may return and rebuild their city (Is. 45). Captive Israel see those idols hastily loaded on carts to escape captivity (46:1-2). Now Israel can sing and celebrate God who has carried them from birth even to old age (46:3-4). What a vision of God for a Happy New Year!
A New Years “day of salvation” is proclaimed as the goal of Servant Israel’s mission to be a light to the nations so that God’s salvation will reach the ends if the earth (Isa. 49:6,8 It is the time of God’s favor and as Paul admonishes the Corinthians, we must not accept God’s grace as an empty thing (2 Cor. 6:1-2). Now that is something to celebrate on” New Year’s Day. Finally, the prophet proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor (Isa. 61:1-2), a time that calls for great celebration (61:10-11). Christians celebrate Jesus who came to proclaim and enact that year (Luke 4:18-21). Many leave everything and follow him. Fishermen become fishers of men (Luke 5:10-11).
The Bible does not speak of a calendar year or day like 1/1/24 but of those times in history when God acts to set captives free to return home and rebuild, a time to follow Jesus in a ministry like his, and a time to be reconciled to God and become new creation. Now that is a true New Years celebration.
—Tom Yoakum