As much as we can debate whether Christmas is really a religious holiday any more, no one even attempts to claim New Year’s as a “holy” day. But I am beginning to think it is, after a fashion.
I’m not talking about the way people celebrate New Year’s Eve with its worst reputation being an evening of drunkedness and debauchery. What makes New Year’s approach holiness for me is it’s combination of reflection (on the year passing) and hope (for the year to come).
The process of mulling over the year ending begins for me when I write my Christmas cards. If I’m sharing news with friends, I have to evaluate what was important out of all the year’s events. It becomes a period of taking stock of where things are in my life: How is my family? What are my blessings and trials? What have I accomplished – or not – that I had hoped to do? I notice my friends do the same sort of thing – bringing me up-to-date on what is happening in their lives. The report varies: some years are great and others we’re happy to leave behind.
We do this reflection as a society as well. The media air the “Year in Review” and the “Year’s Best” of everything: sports, movies, news stories, music. At the very least this musing over the waning year can be interesting, but more than that, I think it’s good for us.
What we loosely refer to as the Happy Holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s – work together to bring us to this point. First, Thanksgiving reminds us to count our blessings. Christmas follows, asking us to think of and do for others. Finally, New Year’s encourages us to think about ourselves – not in a selfish way, but so that we know ourselves better. Sifting through what was good and bad about the immediate past prepares us to tackle the future.
Then, when the New Year dawns, we’re ready to embrace it with appropriate hope.
The cynic among us can remind us correctly that New Year’s is an arbitrary day without really significance. But even knowing that, I find the idea that we are entering a “new” year works on us in a positive way. We like “new” things. What’s new is not marred, not likely to break down. It’s fresh and inviting! This is a good way to enter into the New Year: full of the hope that blooms in a fresh start, a beginning that opens onto wonderful possibilities.
Paul tells us that we become a new creation when we open ourselves to Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Maybe New Year’s becomes a holy day when we glimpse the vision of hope that God offers renewed people who have learned from the past and believe the future can be good.
So let us welcome in 2015 and look for a Happy New Year!
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