New Year's Eve - December 31, 2011 - Luke 12:35-40

Approximately 4 ½ hours from now we – all of us who are still awake, that is – will be ringing out the old year and ringing in the New Year. We will say farewell to 2011 and look forward with great anticipation to 2012. One phrase that you hear repeated over and over again on this evening is “out with the old, in with the new.” We have high hopes that this next year will be better than this year. We may have lists of things to do or accomplish next year that we didn’t do and didn’t accomplish this year. We make great-sounding resolutions and have every intention of keeping them. But we don’t keep them. We don’t do them. I think the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes hit the nail on head when he wrote: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

“Out with the old, in with the new” is a phrase many people apply not just to their everyday life, but to their life of faith. You can hear and read any number of well-meaning faith-based resolutions at this time of year. “I’m going to read my Bible more.” Or “I’m going to be more regular in my church attendance.” Or “I’m going to become more involved in church activities.” There’s nothing really wrong with those or any other resolutions you might suggest. In fact, I congratulate anyone who actually does read the Bible more or does become more regular in church attendance or does become more active in church activities.

But unfortunately, more often than not we fail to keep those resolutions, too. I’m not trying to condemn anyone here, especially if you’ve made some of those same resolutions and especially if you have the best intentions of keeping them. Because the plain fact of the matter is that without God’s help, we are powerless to make these or any changes in our lives. We mean well, but we can’t – on our own – do well. We are, by nature, hopeless and helpless sinners. As St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”
Perhaps a better phrase to use tonight would be something like this: “out with the new and in with the old.” Because we all know that in the blink of any eye – no matter how good our intentions may be – we’ll go right back to living our lives next year just like we lived them this year. Same old sins. Same old failures. Same old shortcomings. “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Yes, there may indeed be new blessings and happiness in 2012, but there also may be new sadness and loss and tragedies and disasters in 2012. We look forward to greeting new members to our families and fellowship through the miracle of birth or marriage or any number of ways, but we also know that we may be saying our farewells to others who may be taken home to heaven in death. But none of that, really, is new. Things change, but they really remain the same. “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
No matter what may happen or not happen to us individually and collectively in the year ahead, there are some things that remain unchanged and unchangeable. In fact, I’ve put together a short list, and I ask for your indulgence as I read my “top 10 out with the new and in with the old list” for the year ahead.

1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and all creatures therein. He created all things seen and unseen out of nothing. He created not through evolution or the big bang or the survival of the fittest – but by His almighty spoken Word. The only exception was the creation of man, personally and lovingly formed by the hands of God from the dust of the ground and brought to life by the breath of God Himself.
2. Soon after the creation, the first man and woman – Adam and Eve – sinned against God, earning the punishment of eternal damnation and death. Because of their sin, we are born in original sin and deserve that same sentence of death.
3. In His divine mercy, God promised Adam and Eve that a Messiah would come into this now-sinful world to redeem them. God also promised Satan that he and his followers would be defeated by this Messiah and condemned to eternal suffering in hell.
4. Over the next thousands of years, God repeatedly promised the Messiah to His chosen people, the Children of Israel. This Messiah would be a human son, a human descendent of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and King David – but would also be true God, the Son of the Most High, the Son of the great I Am.
5. Even when the Children of Israel rebelled against their God and fell into the abominations of idol worship, God kept and preserved His remnant – the few but faithful believers – to deliver on His promise to deliver a Savior to His people, born of the house and lineage of King David.
6. In the fullness of time, the Virgin Mary gave birth to God’s Son, named Jesus, exactly as the prophets had foretold.
7. This same Jesus grew into manhood, was baptized by John the Baptizer, spent roughly 3 ½ years preaching and teaching and performing miracles. Even though He fulfilled every prophecy of God’s chosen prophets, He was rejected by the Jewish religious authorities as a blasphemer and as a fraud.
8. On the terrible day we now refer to as “Good Friday,” this sinless Son of God willingly gave His life for our sins, suffering and dying on the cross.
9. On the third day – the day we now refer to as Easter – Jesus was raised from the dead, forever conquering sin and death.
10. Forty days after His resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven, where He sits at the right hand of God the Father.

Those things never change. They never have changed and they never will change. As the writer to the Hebrews says in chapter 13 verse 8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” But in the 21st chapter of the Revelation of St. John, we read: “And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I m making all things new.’” And then these words from today’s Gospel lesson: “You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Now we understand that in matters of faith, even as the foundation of our faith remains unchangeable, we do look forward to “out with the old and in with the new.” As redeemed, forgiven children of God, we rest safe in the knowledge and faith that God’s promise of a Messiah was fulfilled in Christ Jesus. We rest safe in the knowledge and faith that Christ’s victory over sin and death has been made our victory over sin and death. We rest safe in the knowledge and faith that the resurrection of Jesus on the third day foreshadows our resurrection on the last day. We rest safe in the knowledge and faith that the days of this sinful and corrupted earth are truly numbered, and the return of Jesus to judge the living and the dead will happen. It may happen tonight. It may happen next year. It may happen – well, we don’t know when it will happen. But no matter when it happens, Jesus tells us to be ready. “The Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

And at that hour we do not expect, it will happen. We don’t know when – and so we wait. We wait with expectation. We wait not for a new calendar year, but for a new, eternal life with our Savior. The world as we know it will pass away, and everything will truly be new – perfect, holy, without any stain of sin and death.

So don’t worry about making resolutions for the year ahead. Our God has already made one – and unlike the resolutions we make and break, this one is guaranteed. You heard it during tonight’s Epistle lesson reading, and I’d like tor repeat those words to you one final time in 2011. As St. Paul writes: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

 

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