At Year's End

That time of year is upon us again – the end of one set of twelve months and the beginning of another. In this particular instance, we call the former “2009” and the latter “2010”. Just what is it about this thing called New Year’s?
For some people, it’s an excuse to have a wild party, complete with more food, beverages, and people than one can stand. And if you doubt the third item on that short list, simply watch the Times Square New Year’s event. If that to you does not look like more people packed into one small area than one person could or should be able to stand, than you are much more of a social butterfly than I.
But in all of my 25 years, I have never gone to a New Year’s party, and I do not plan to break with tradition for the sake of change – or anything else – as 2009 rolls over into 2010. Granted, I may eat more than my share of food tonight, but other than that it will be a more or less solitary observation of the changing of the times and seasons. That is, unless you count as a regular shindig my watching of an occasional neighborhood firework – which, I would have you know, is getting around here to be as risky as flying these days, what with the better-than-even shot (whether due to the ignorance of the shooter or the shabbiness of the design, it is left to the reader to decide) of a firework going astray and aiming for your house.
For almost everyone in our culture, a new year is quite a symbolic event. It affords us the opportunity to look back on the twelve months that have just passed into history and seek to discern the meaning of those things that have transpired therein and to reflect on how our lives have during that time trended to the better or to the worse. At the same time, we take a moment to look forward to the coming year. Some of us undertake the impossible task of trying to divine what the next year will bring for us, for our nation, and for the world. Beyond that, there are the regular “New Year’s resolutions” – decisions (firm in our own minds for at least a week) that we SHALL improve ourselves in this or that area of our personal lives, whether it be in the area of weight, or attitude, or education, or romance, or what-not.
Every so often a new year brings with it a new decade, and such is the case tonight. We’ll say goodbye to the 2000s and say hello to the 2010s. What will the 2000s eventually be known for? Clearly, world-changing events like 9/11 made their mark on the decade and will rightly be seen as one of its hallmarks. So too, is the startlingly rapid advance in technology. Human nature didn’t change, and it never has, but we must acknowledge that this was a rather more dangerous and complex decade than many complacently and optimistically believed it would be as the “new millennium” dawned (but at least the computers didn’t all shut down on January 1, 2000, as a few people I know – and perhaps myself to some degree – thought would or at least feared might happen). But there were bright spots, too, both individually and corporately. You know what they were for you. And you know the not-so-bright moments that also helped make the 2000s what they were for you. It varies from person to person.
The 2010s will be like that, only in a different way. None of us can tell what will be a minute from now, much less what will be the great events of the next decade. History will be made in politics, business, sports, war, and peace. People will look back on the 2010s, as they will soon begin to do on the 2000s, and point out (and perhaps even laugh at) the unique fashions, hairstyles, fads, expressions, events and inventions that make each decade special.
There is much we can’t control or predict about time. The only thing we can control, even though imperfectly, is what we do with the time God allows us. The foremost thing we must do with our time, if we have not already, is to respond to God’s gift of salvation by trusting what Jesus has done on our behalf in dying for our sins so that we might be made right with God. Once that is done, we must each endeavor to live lives that are as pleasing to our Heavenly Father as possible. All the other resolutions may fall by the wayside, but if in 2010 we strive to please and honor the One who gives us life and all good things on this earth, then our new year will not fail to be a fruitful one. Happy New Year!