Gospel in the New Year

It's January 1st... but don't worry, I'll spare you all the New Year's cliches and personal anecdotes. Much of how we celebrate the coming of a new year in our culture is rather odd. We count down the last minute like time isn't really just some arbitrary way of measuring the repeating of events. We gather in homes, in bars, concert halls and even in the streets to "ring" in the new year like it won't come if we don't welcome it. What's up with the toast thing anyway? Why do we clink our glasses and drink "to" the new year? What does all of this mean???

Sure, I may be cynical but all of this and more runs through my brain each year as I trudge off to yet another party to hang out way past my bed time to watch a ball drop in New York. (which by the way is an hour ahead of my time zone...so I miss it in real time)

Last night I starting thinking out loud. As we were cleaning up the cups and plates just 2 minutes after midnight, in the anti-climatic glow of 2009, I asked this question: "Why is the celebration of the New Year a big deal in almost every culture?" Because it is! Think about it. Every different form calendaring has an inherent New Year's celebration. So when the people in the room heard me ask this seemingly outlandish question and responded in awe, I asked it another way. "What is it about a new year that is so captivating to human beings?"

Think about it. No matter one's religious, political, or cultural slant...we are all enthralled with the celebration of a new start, a brand new year. There is something so mystical about the clock striking midnight on January 1st that we gather by the droves to celebrate together. Why?

Why would people cram themselves into time square to listen to the Jonas Brothers? Why would senior citizens, who go to bed every night at 9:30 on the dot, stay up until 12:01? What could possibly drive the entire world to lay aside work, responsibility and schedule to consider the beginning of a new year some sort of holiday? (holiday = holy + day)

And then it hit me... it's the Gospel.

Though we are fallen and depraved humanity we still have within us this divine imprint because we were created in the image of God. Because of this, I believe we have innate longings and drives that even sin could only mar yet not remove. This fascination with a new year is only a fascination with the Gospel.

Everybody wants a chance to start over. People love to sit down, look back at the past year, all the mistakes and failures and look to the future with hope that it will get better. And even though it is just a chiming of bells in a clock, somehow we believe the one second that separates December and January can cleanse our sins.

The truth is, it can't. We prove that each year as millions make "New Year's resolutions" and within a few weeks millions break them just as easily because we are broken and cannot save ourselves.

People need the Gospel.

People long for it. They run from churches and run from the Holy Spirit and His convicting of sin. Though proud humanity brazenly rejects the Gospel in every "Christianized" form, their actions betray their hearts' deepest need.

The human condition cries out for redemption. The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that God has entrusted to us the ministry of reconciliation by which God appeals to people, through us, to be reconciled to Him.

May 2009 be a year where we love the Gospel...honor the Gospel....live the Gospel...and preach the Gospel. To do this we must first preach the Gospel to ourselves daily, repent of our own sins and live in the wonderful truth that God saves sinners, even us. With and only with this frame of mind will we begin to live on mission... loving God because of the Gospel, loving people towards the Gospel, and restoring our communities and cities with the Gospel.