New Year Hope

Dick Clark was still at the Time Square celebration. He has been there for more than 35 years. Every year he wishes us all a Happy New Year. Every year there is the review of the past year and predictions for the coming year. And every year it looks like more of the same thing. What do we really expect to be new in the coming year? Isn't every wish for something new an affirmation of faith? For where is the new to come from except from beyond? The Teacher in the Old Testament said that there was nothing new under the sun. And if the new year has nothing to offer but the same old earth and the same old humanity then we will get the same old stuff.

I remember a discussion that Will Willimon had with InterVarsity students at Duke. He asked them how in the world they could be evangelical conservative Christians and be at Duke. They responded that it was because of what they had learned at Duke that convinced them that if there was any hope for humanity, if there was any hope for something new in life, it would come from outside the limits of our humanity. It would come from "beyond." If there was any hope for the future, for a new year, it would be from the invasion of time by eternity. There would be lots of rearranging of the matter and forces of this earth, but it would not be new. There may be different forms of energy, but it would not make a great deal of difference in human relationships and the competition of cultures.

So it seems to me that every New Year's Resolution is a confession of a need to be changed, and every New Year's wish for a New and different year is an affirmation that something New will come into our reality and the wish that the Holy will be made visible in the temporal.