New Year

On New Year’s Day

January 1, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Certain topics typically come up at this time of year. Most common, I suppose, is that of resolutions. People post their resolutions, usually for a couple of reasons: either to hold themselves accountable or to suggest behaviors that their friends might consider.

Sometimes people show their character inclinations by letting the topic devolve into controversy: why my resolution is better than yours, or why the whole idea of resolutions is defective, for this reason or that.

I suppose the most mentioned defect is that so many people resolve to get in better physical shape, and they show up at the gym, crowding out the regulars and often entertaining them by demonstrating that they have no idea how to use the equipment. The regulars, in response, try to calm themselves by remembering that these folks will be here for just a few days before they go back to their couch-potato ways. Happens every year, and we just have to deal with it.

A topic I’ve seen more often this year is a denigration of the whole idea of calendar: why should the year start on January 1? Most of our measuring units for time (years, months, days) are based on cosmic cycles—the week being the notable exception.

[ Sidebar: That’s odd. I wonder why every culture has a 7-day week, when there’s no cosmic cycle to motivate it? That uniformity is … puzzling. ;-) ]

In the case of the year, there’s nothing evidently special about the earth’s orbital position on January 1; why start the year there? Other cultures start the year at other times. The Chinese New Year is on February 10 this year; as I understand it, it’s an anticipation of spring, the resurgence of life.

Hebrew culture has 2 New Year’s Days (well, actually, 4, but the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament, mentions just 2). The civil New Year, Rosh Hashanah (literally “head of the year”), comes in the autumn, on Tishri 1, which this year will begin on October 2 at sunset. This is associated with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when in ancient Israel the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies to sprinkle atoning blood on the Mercy Seat, the lid of the Ark of the Covenant. It is the holiest day of the year.

The religious New Year begins in the spring, at Passover, on Nisan 1, which this year will begin at sunset on April 22. When Israel left captivity in Egypt, God judged the Egyptians by the death of their firstborn, but “passed over” those who in faith had marked their door frames with the blood of a sacrificial lamb. At that time God said that this would be “the beginning of months to you” (Ex 12.2). Christians will note that Jesus was crucified on Passover.

I would think that would get confusing, having 2 New Years, but the ancient Hebrews, and the modern Jews, seem to handle it just fine.

The arguments will go on. Why should our culture consider one day more of a “New Year’s Day” than any other? Why have one at all?

Both secular and Christian thinkers applaud thoughtful living. Socrates said that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” and Paul admonishes his Ephesian readers to “walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise” (Ep 5.15). We ought to examine our values, our priorities, and our consequent words and actions every day; many Christians choose to spend time in the Scriptures and in prayer daily, and many of those choose the morning, to give the day a thoughtful, evaluative start. I’ve found that to be greatly helpful, as have others.

But similarly, it makes sense to recognize the cycles of our life with times of introspection. That’s something that seems fitting to lots of people. There’s certainly no harm in stopping to think once in a while, despite the ridicule of pedantic cynics over calendrical minutiae.

So feel free to go with January 1, or some other date, chosen randomly or otherwise, and pause for evaluation, contemplation, reprioritization.

Do well, and do good.

Happy New Year.

Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash

The Incomparable Christ

January 3, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

We’re all thinking about the best way(s) to start off the New Year, and it occurs to me that for Christians, who are forever in Christ (Ro 8.1, 12.5; 1Co 1.30), it’s only sensible to begin the year with a meditation on him.

There are many biblical passages on which we could choose to meditate. One of my favorites is the opening paragraph of Hebrews. I’ve used it before as an indicator of the way God speaks, but it will serve well for this purpose too.

The point of Hebrews, as you probably know, is to demonstrate that the Hebrew Scriptures are fulfilled in Jesus, who is the climax of all that they anticipate. In just the opening sentence, the author tells us much about the greatness of Christ:

He is the heir to all of the Father’s authority (He 1.2).
He is the creator of all things (He 1.2).
He is the perfect expression of the nature of God (He 1.3).
Like the Father, He holds omnipotence in His very words (He 1.3).
He has cleansed us of all our sin debt (He 1.3).
He has finished His saving work and is now exalted in a position of honor in the heavenly throne room (He 1.3).

In the rest of the book, the author is going to demonstrate that Jesus is superior

in his person—
- greater than the angels (He 1-2)
- or even than Moses (He 3-4)
as well as in his work—
- in the priesthood (He 5-7)
- in the New Covenant (He 8-9)
- and in the offering of himself as the perfect sacrifice (He 10)

The author spends the first chapter listing passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that demonstrate that Jesus is far superior to the angels—

Citing Psalm 2 and the Davidic Covenant in 2Samuel 7, he notes that Jesus is the Son (He 1.5), whereas the angels are commanded to worship him in Deuteronomy 32.43 (He 1.6).*
Angels are referred to as “servants” in Psalm 104.4 (He 1.7, 14), but the Son is described in much more elevated language in Psalm 45.6-7, Psalm 102.25-27, and Psalm 110.1 (He 1.8-13).
- He holds lordship over the universe (He 1.8)—indeed, he holds lordship over the world yet to come (He 2.5-9)
- He is unchanging (He 1.11-12).

In this connection it’s worth noting that while angels often announced God’s redemptive work –

Gabriel announced John the Baptist’s birth to Zacharias (Luke 1:13ff)
Gabriel announced Jesus’ birth to Mary (Luke 1:26ff)
An angel announced Jesus’ birth to Joseph (Matt. 1:20)
An angel announced Jesus’ birth to the shepherds (Luke 2:9ff)
An angel warned Joseph of the danger from Herod (Matt. 2:13)

… they never actually accomplished any of that work. That was all Christ’s—

Perfect obedience to the Law (Ro 5.19; He 4.15)
A perfectly atoning death as the Lamb of God (Ro 8.3)
His own resurrection and the consequent defeat of death (Jn 2.19, 21)**
His intercession for us in the heavenly throne room (He 9.24; Ro 8.34)

The Son, the Messiah, the uniquely Anointed One has proved himself not only sufficient, but superior in all the ways that matter. As we start into a new year, many of us with dread or at least apprehension, we can proceed confidently, knowing that our Forerunner has planned and prepared the way and determined the perfect outcome for his people.

The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven;
his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men (Ps 11.4).

* A textual variant has resulted in the cited material in He 1.6 not appearing in most English translations of Dt 32.43, but it’s there. That’s a really interesting story; maybe a post on it would be worthwhile.

** Of course, because of the unity of the Trinity, the Father (Ac 5.30, 10.40) and the Spirit (Ro 1.4, 8.11) are said to participate in Christ’s resurrection as well.

Photo by James on Unsplash

On Aspirations in the New Year

January 7, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In my previous post I noted the importance of paying attention to the little opportunities for compromise that our culture routinely sets before us. As Solomon noted, even the little foxes can plunder the vines (SS 2.15).

I’d like to extend that thought to the positive side.

With the New Year, most of us—for completely illogical reasons, since calendrically speaking there’s nothing particularly historically significant about the annual day we call “January 1”—give some thought to turning over a page of self-improvement, sometimes including resolutions for change in the new year.

We ought to do that continuously, but whatever. :-)

I recently came across an essay by the old Keswick pastor and devotional writer F. B. Meyer (incidentally, the man who introduced D. L. Moody to Great Britain), called “The Common Task,” that we might consider as we seek self-improvement.

Meyer notes that lots of people are convinced—and some of them rightly—that their station in life is beneath their abilities—as he put it, that one’s “life afford[s] no outlet for the adequate exercise of his powers.” He offers some mollifying and sharpening thoughts to those in that situation.

I should note that Meyer is clearly not suggesting apathy or lack of aspiration; his biography demonstrates the kind of productivity that evidences devotion, effort, and energy. By all means, take a survey of your gifts and abilities, and seek ways to steward them for the greatest good in the world.

Be all that you can be.

But most of us know that we can aspire to things that we will never reach. Only 45 people in history have ever been POTUS; millions of others haven’t, but not for lack of thinking about it. You’re probably not going to be a star athlete, and I’m most certainly never going to be a fighter pilot, thanks to a bum ear—and the grace of God.

What do you do with the Now, even as you aspire to the Then?

Meyer offers several observations, from which I’ve selected and reworded for the current century.

God has a plan for you, and it will happen. God is attentive to your situation, committed to your fulfillment, and able to bring it to pass. You are where and what you are by his benevolent plan, which includes an eternal future.
No matter what your circumstances are right now, you can fulfill your most important goal—Christlikeness—in the midst of them. In Meyer’s words, “We ought … to be very careful how we fulfill the common tasks of daily life. We are making the character in which we have to spend eternity.”
Doing anything well—even trivial things—makes a difference.
- The excellence you develop prepares you for doing greater things later. “You cannot be brave in a crisis if you are habitually a coward. You cannot be generous with a fortune if you are a miser with a limited income.”
- The way you handle small responsibilities is evidence of who you truly are. And God notices.

“There are great tasks to be fulfilled in eternity: angels to be judged; cities to be ruled; perhaps worlds to be evangelized. For these, suitable agents will be required: those who can rule, because they have served; those who can command, because they have obeyed; those who can save others, because they never saved themselves. Perhaps even now, our Heavenly Father is engaged in seeking those among us who can fill these posts. And he is seeking them, not amongst such as are filling high positions in the eyes of men, but in the ranks of such as are treading the trivial round and fulfilling the common task.”

In this New Year,

aspire;
plan;
steward your abilities;
and serve, with diligence and energy, wherever the Master places you.

Happy new year.

Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash

On a New Year

January 2, 2020 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

This is my 65th New Year. The first few I was completely unaware of, but since then, like a lot of other people, I’ve enjoyed the sense of excitement and optimism that our culture associates with the date. There’s something bracing about turning the page, starting out fresh, doing things better this time around.

Sometimes those among us who have half-empty glasses feel the need to point out a couple of things about the new year—as a public service, of course—

There’s really no such thing as a new start, you know. We carry with us the consequences of our previous sins and failures and misjudgments.
If the past is any guide, your good intentions are going to fade in a few days, and statistics show that pretty soon you’re going to be back in the same old rut.

As someone whose glass is perpetually half full—with contents that are quite tasty, thanks—I’ll observe that while those two statements are technically true, they’re practically false by virtue of their incompleteness. Let me explain.

First, it’s true that we carry with us the consequences of our past failures. The founder of my university used to say that if an inebriated bar patron loses an eye in a bar fight, and then gets gloriously converted, he’ll be forgiven, but he’ll never get his eye back. There are consequences of our sin that are inescapable.

True enough. But let’s not forget that he does get gloriously converted, and that’s nothing to slough over. And with conversion comes a whole raft of change and empowerment that will certainly affect the path that the convert takes for the rest of his life.

So yes, you do bring some baggage into this new year, and you can’t pretend that the baggage is weightless. But if you’re a believer, you have the Spirit of God indwelling you, changing your thinking, enabling you to act on that new way of thinking, and surely and powerfully bringing you, over time, into conformity with the Son of God (2Co 3.18). This new year is another step in that sure process.

Divine enablement is a powerful, powerful thing. If your New Year’s resolutions involve spiritual progress, they come with serious momentum behind them.

Now about that second point. Let me note first that statistics don’t “show” anything about the future. They show tendencies about past activities. But rare things do happen.

It’s demonstrably true that most people accomplish less toward their New Year’s resolutions than they intend. But that says nothing about how you’ll do on yours. The fact is that a minority of people do make and maintain significant changes. Somebody’s going to succeed; why can’t you be part of that group? Set reasonable goals, lay out a plan, pray for grace, and go for it.

Maybe you’ll accomplish less than you intend. Fine. But you’ll accomplish something. Refer to point 1.

So much for the naysayers.

My experience also tells me that some new years seem to hold more promise for change than others. In my lifetime, the Big One was Y2K, which involved the potential End of Civilization As We Know It and turned out to be, well, a dud. (Yeah, I filled some containers with water so we’d at least be able to flush the toilet after the End. Can’t hurt to make simple provisions.)

This one is 2020, which is a new decade, and a balanced number, and carries the connotation of clear vision, so who knows? Might be a big year.

But we make too big a deal about Big Years.

Of course our lives include major events—birth, marriage, parenthood, maybe a championship of something, or some other form of public recognition—but the important stuff, the really important stuff, is typically all about simple consistency and attentiveness and faithfulness. The wedding is a Big Deal, but the marriage involves simple daily kindness, gentleness, and thoughtfulness. The birth of your child is a Big Deal, but parenting is a daily slog that is sometimes difficult and frustrating but in the end leaves delightful memories.

So this year, steward your goals, and make them achievable. Make them less about the fireworks and more about faithfulness in the shadows. And watch God keep his promises for your growth in him.

Happy New Year.

Photo by madeleine ragsdale on Unsplash

New Leaves

December 31, 2018 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

New Year’s Eve. Last day of the old year; looking forward to the new.

There is something in us that makes us reflective at this season. We think through the past year and often make resolutions for the new.

This year, things will be better. Life will be better. We will be better.

Humans being complicated, this general optimism—or at least desire for improvement—is countered by cynics (they would call themselves realists) who confidently predict that it won’t last. Some of them seem irritated that anybody’s even trying. The most obvious example of that, I suppose, is at the gym, where the regulars are frustrated that for the first week or two of every January they can’t get to their usual machines because of the crowds—and their irritation is increased by the fact that the interlopers don’t even know how to use said machines.

I feel their pain—though I’ll admit that I haven’t done much at the gym this last semester, mostly due to schedule constraints of my first-semester teaching schedule. If I were going to start an exercise program, I think I’d start in December—or any time other than January. But as it happens, my gym is closed for 2 weeks precisely at the end of December, so that’s out.

Anyway, while recognizing the inconvenience that the optimists are to the cynics, at least at the gym, I’d like to suggest that they lighten up a little. If history is any guide, a lot of people will set out on a course of self-improvement this week, and the great majority of them will apostatize before the month is out. But does that mean that they shouldn’t even try? Or that they shouldn’t at least aspire?

Isn’t aspiration, the desire to get better, the desire to succeed, an essential part of being a healthy human? Isn’t it part of the image of God in us?

And if it is, shouldn’t we start down that path, and encourage others to do the same? Is that hopelessly naïve, or is it just healthy?

God certainly knew that we would fail when he created us, and he went ahead and did it anyway. He knew that Abraham’s descendants would be unfaithful lovers in the extreme, but he chose and blessed them anyway. He knew that Moses would strike the rock in rage, and that the same Israel who stood at Mt. Sinai and cried—with one voice—“All that the Lord has spoken, we will do!” (Ex 19.8), would refuse to take the land when God gave it to them. He knew that David would sin with Bathsheba. Jesus knew that Peter would deny him—and that Judas would betray him. And God chose them all anyway.

The Judas story is particularly intriguing. The Scripture doesn’t tell us Judas’s motive for the betrayal—though earlier it describes his motive at Bethany as greed (Jn 12.6). Some have speculated that like some of the other Jews, he wanted Jesus to overthrow the Romans and establish a political Messiahship. Maybe he did. If so, Jesus’ treatment of him is interesting.

It appears that Jesus set up a “buddy system” among the Twelve; we know that he sent them out in pairs on at least one preaching tour (Mk 6.7), and the accompanying list of the apostles appears to list them in pairs—Peter and Andrew, James and John, and so forth (Mt 10.2). If this is a “buddy list” of long-term “roommate” relationships, with whom does Jesus pair Judas?

Simon the Zealot (Mt 10.4).

And what’s the significance of that?

The designation Zealot is a reference to an activist group of the day who opposed the hated Roman occupiers with what we would call today “asymmetrical warfare.”

Simon was a guerrilla fighter. He was a terrorist.

But a changed one. He followed Jesus, and unlike Judas, he stayed true to that commitment to the very death.

So maybe—maybe—Jesus paired Judas the malcontent with Simon the (converted!) Zealot to let him see up close what a redeemed terrorist and Roman-hater looked like.

Maybe he was giving Judas a chance.

In any case, the God who knows all doesn’t go all cynical on us just because he knows we’ll stumble or even fail spectacularly.

We shouldn’t think like that either.

So make your plans, and your resolutions, for the new year. Set off down that path, with determination.

And if you proceed unevenly—you will, you know—get up and keep going.

For what it’s worth, I’m rooting for you.

Photo by madeleine ragsdale on Unsplash