It
won’t be 2012 much longer. In a couple
of days 2012 will end and the year 2013 will begin. In every time zone people will gather in homes, and clubs, and
churches, and public spaces to countdown to midnight. And then they will shout and sing and celebrate
the moment of transition out of one year and into another.
Why
is that?
Our
modern Western calendar marks 365 days in a year. This is about how long it takes planet Earth
to complete a single orbit around the sun, but even the 365 isn’t exactly right.
So, we have leap year to try to make up the miscalculation.
The
billions of people who follow the Chinese, Hindu, Muslim, or Eastern Orthodox
calendars mark New Year at an entirely different time.
To
us it’ll be a new month and a new year.
But to a whole lot of people,
it’ll just be Tuesday.
Even
the Bible makes it clear that the date we choose for New Year’s Day has no real
significance in itself. In fact the
Bible has 2 different dates for New Years’ Day.
The
ancient Hebrews counted years by the
movement of the moon, not by the movements of the Earth and sun. So the Biblical calendar was not 365 days.
But
even then, New Year’s Day was marked and remembered.
We
know that because Noah marked the New Year.
Genesis
8:13 And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the
month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and
looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry.
But
that was New Year’s Day on the old Hebrew calendar.
In
Exodus chapter 12, when God sent the 10th plague on Egypt, killing
the firstborn and freeing the Jews from slavery, the Lord also changed the
calendar.
The
1st Passover took place in the Hebrew month of Nisan (Abib in Caananite),
the 8th month of the Hebrew
year. On the day of the 1st
Passover, God said in Exodus
12:2 “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first
month of the year to you.
So,
from then what had been the 8th month became the 1st month.
The freed Jews had a new New Year’s Day.
Like
the Christian church today, the Jews have 2 calendars, a religious or
“liturgical” calendar and the original secular calendar.
I
have a friend in Camden, Alabama who greets everyone with “Happy New Year.”
Doesn’t matter what day or what time.
Whether you see him in a store, or call him on the phone, he says,
“Well, Happy New Year.”
Why
is that?
“Because,”
he says, “Every day, every moment is a chance to start fresh. Every moment is the beginning of the rest of
your life. Everyday is the start of the
next year of your life. So---- Happy New
Year.”
Nothing
is wrong with joining with friends and family in the celebration of the coming
New Year, but you have to understand that there is nothing magical about this
date. That 10 second countdown between what we call December 31st
and what we refer to as January 1st is not in and of itself anything
special.
What
makes the New Year new and hopeful is you.
You
determine that this moment is the moment at which you begin to do the things
you have not done.
You
determine that this is the date from which you will calculate the deadlines for
completing the projects that will change the trajectory of your life.
You
determine that this is where you start counting down through the milestones and
obstacles you must pass to fulfill your purpose.
The
newness of the New Year is not a function of our shifting and arbitrary
calendar markings.
The
newness of the New Year comes from you.
Therefore,
you don’t have to wait for the December 31st countdown to reach your
local time zone. You can begin your New
Year right now.
In
fact, what you really should be asking yourself is: Why you are waiting for
Monday night to become Tuesday morning?
Are
you going to be any different Tuesday at 12: 01 A.M. than you are right now?
Is
the champagne and music of that New Year’s party going to give you any power
that you don’t now possess to choose the path you have been called to?
Are
you holding out for a Word in “Watch Night” worship to confirm the calling and
anointing that the Holy Spirit has already confirmed a thousand times?
No,
you’re not. Not really.
You
know that the real change from old to new year doesn’t come from flipping a
page on a calendar; it comes from shifting the mentality that has held back your spirit.
Right
now is the first moment of the next year of your life.
Resolve
to be different from this moment forward.
Resolve
to be better starting now.
Resolve
to do what you should have been doing and seal your resolve by doing, not by
drinking.
Do
some push-ups---- now.
Read
your Bible ---- now.
Pray----
now.
Call,
text, email, write, get up and go into the next room and tell the people you
love how much you love them------ right now.
Throughout
history and across cultures we’ve made New Year’s Day to be whatever day we
wanted it to be.
Make NOW your New Year.
Happy
New Year.
---Anderson
T. Graves II is a pastor, writer, community organizer
and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
