Marking of a New Year

Mankind has this God driven need to designate times, seasons and years. In the Bible the designation of a New Year and its yearly celebration is given in Exodus 12, this month is to be the beginning of a year. Our current custom of marking a New Year on January comes from paganism and the Roman emperor Julius Caesar and it is in honor of the Roman god Janus, the two directional god of beginnings and transitions who faces backward and forward. But what is the Biblical meaning attached to new beginnings? Psalm 90 is the prayer of Moses on such an occasion. O God our help in ages pass and our eternal home. Teach us to number our days and give us hearts and minds of wisdom to number our days.

Bible Insights with Wayne Conrad
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Psalms 119:105 Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

Transcript

Welcome to Bible Insights with Wayne Conrad.  

God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light on our path. I'm recording this podcast to you on the eve of a brand new designated year. It's around 1159 on December the 31st. but in about two minutes it will be, magically, January 1st of the year 2026. So Happy New Year. 

I wonder though, you know, we have a custom of designating years, and in fact, in a way, the Bible endorses the concept because the heavens, Genesis tells us, are given for the marking of seasons and times and days. And so at the beginning of creation, we have a designation. There was evening and there was morning, the first day, the second, and all the way through to the sixth day, at which time God has finished his act of creation. And it says on the seventh day that God rested. 

Now it doesn't have a beginning and ending of the day, the seventh day, indicating it's Although it is a day of the week, it indicates also that it carries very symbolic significance or meaning. That is that God, having completed his perfect work, now contemplates in satisfaction and joy the work of his hands. And in the gospel, God invites us to come in to the rest that he has provided for us in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

But in our society, we designate January 1st the beginning of a new year each year. But it's only one of many new years we have. You know, if you work in the financial world, sometimes with businesses and even with churches, you have a year that begins for your balancing of your books. And many times that year comes around September 1st, going through August 31st and then a new accounting year might begin in September. 

We have religious beginnings of New Years. In fact, there's one in the Bible. The Bible does endorse a particular New Year and that God has given it to the nation of Israel. And we find that in Exodus chapter 12. He said, this is just before God visits Egypt and the whole land with the plague on the firstborn, the death of the firstborn of both man and beast. But God makes provision for the Hebrews. They are to slaughter a lamb, on a particular day, smear its blood on the doorpost of their house, go into their house and lock the door during this particular period of time while the Lord's messenger of death passes through the land, slaying the firstborn. 

And this is what Yahweh, God says to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, reading from Exodus chapter 12, verse one and two. The Lord says to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, this month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. And then he goes on to give descriptions of how the Passover ceremony was to be conducted by certain days of that month leading up to the death of the Passover lamb. And then the days after that. So that's God's designation of a new year for the people of the Hebrews. 

Surprisingly though, the Hebrews or the Jewish people also have another brand new year in the fall with the Feast of Trumpets. And so that's considered the head of the year. And then like most of us in the West, they keep the new year of January 1st. 

Well, how did that day originate? Well, it's basically a designation of paganism. And I'm not saying we shouldn't observe it. I'm just saying that our New Year's Day originates originally from Mesopotamia, but the reason we do it is because the modern date of January 1st comes from the Roman calendar when Julius Caesar reformed it in 46 BC, years after Christ, or the years before the Common Era, in the Julian calendar. choosing January 1st to honor Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions. And you know the god Janus, his statue has his face looking both directions, to the south and to the north, or east or west, however you place the image. One's the past, the God of the past, the God of beginnings. So that's why we end up with January 1st as the beginning of our, shall we call it, secular time.  

But over time, Christian Europe adopted this date as the start of the new year and it was cemented in the Gregorian calendar in the year of 1582. Well, that's a little history about our new year. its origin, and any connection with new years is found in the Bible. Go back to Genesis 1 and Exodus 12.  

But I want to talk about the spiritual meaning of a new beginning. That's really what we're doing whenever we think about a new year. And there's a psalm that applies to this situation. It's found in the book of Psalms, book four, Psalm 80, which is a prayer of Moses, the man of God. And notice they had begun a new year. with the Passover where God had delivered them out of Egyptian bondage.  

Here's Moses' prayer from the New International Version. And I'll substitute the covenant name of God for Lord because that's what it is in the Hebrew. Yahweh. or here actually is Adonai,  

Lord, you've been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born, are you brought forth the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting, your God. You turn men back to dust, saying, return to dust, O sons of men, for a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, are like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death. They're like the new grass of the morning, though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered. We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. Why is this? Well, because we're a fault of nature. Psalm 8, I mean verse 8. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. In other words, God knows all about us. He is omniscient. All of our days pass away under your wrath. We finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is 70 years or 80 if we have the strength, yet their span is but trouble and sorrow and they quickly pass and we fly away.  

Life is transitory. Time marches on. We have a beginning and we spring up in youth and young adulthood into maturity and into advanced years, but soon, We've passed away in death.  

The psalmist continues, Moses, who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you. So in light of this, what are we to do? This is what Moses prays, his petition. Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Help us, O Lord. to understand that our days, they belong to you. And that we need to remember that. Remember your creator, even in the days of your youth, beginning with you, remember your creator. Remember him all the days of your life.  

Moses goes on in his prayer. Relent, O Yahweh. How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you've afflicted us, for as many years as we've seen trouble. May your deeds be shown to your servants and your splendor to their children. May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us. Establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands. Now this is a psalm that inspired the hymn writer, Isaac Watts. To paraphrase it in a hymn that we're very familiar with, it's a cherished hymn across the centuries. 

Isaac Watts writes, oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come. Our shoulder from the stormy blast and our eternal home. Under the shadow of thy wing or your throne, thy saints have dwelt secure. Sufficient is thine arm alone and our defense is sure. Before the hills in order stood, our earth received its frame. From everlasting, you are God, to endless years the same. A thousand ages in your sight are like an evening gone, short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun. Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away. They fly, forgotten, as a dream lies, dies at the opening day. 

Oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come. Be thou our guide while life shall last, and our eternal home. 

Often in the church, or various church branches, we have what we call colex. That is, they're short prayers that center primarily on one attribute of God, and we speak about that or an event in the light of that attribute, and we make one petition to God. Here's a Scottish collect from the year 1595. 

Eternal God, the only refuge of the afflicted, seeing that the shortness of this present life admonishes us to turn ourselves away from earthly things and to have our meditation on heavenly matters, grant, unto us, that we may employ our whole life on the consideration of your mercy and goodness, and that your anger may be so turned from us that we may have continually whereby to rejoice in you through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

I want to share two more prayers, short prayers with you for the new year. One is written by Frank Colquhoun. 

We give thanks, our Heavenly Father, for the goodness and mercy which have followed us all the days of our life, and especially through the year that is now past, And we pray that in the year ahead, your wisdom may direct us, your power defend us, your love enfold us through Jesus Christ, our Lord. 

And from Harold Evans, this prayer. 

Grant Lord, that means be pleased to give us what we ask, oh Lord. Grant Lord, that as the years change, we may find rest in your eternal changelessness. May we go forward into this year with courage, sure in the faith that while life changes around us, you are always the same. Guiding us with your wisdom and protecting us with your love, So may the peace which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. 

This has been Wayne Conrad with Bible Insights.