God and New Year's Day

Have you ever wondered if God cares about New Year’s Day? God exists in timeless time called eternity. However, when he created humans, he placed them within time, defined by days, weeks, months and years. Last week, last month, last year, was 2011. This week, this month, this year, is 2012. We had New Year celebrations last weekend.

One thing we have come to know about God as revealed in the Hebrew scriptures is that God keeps time. He does things on time. If something must happen on the first of the month, or on the 20th of the month, it will happen on that day, on the hour, to the minute. It is not a coincidence, and it is not an emergency.

The life of Jesus was scripted to the last detail in terms of time and place thousands of years before he was born, and he lived the script. This is one of the things that attest to Jesus’ deity. No human would predict how his own life would turn out the way he did, and the way the prophets before him did.

Let me share with you some of the things God did and said on New Year’s Day in biblical history.

Firstly, we note that when Noah was in the ark during the flood, it was months before the waters subsided. It is recorded that it was on New Year’s Day when Noah opened the window and saw the waters have subsided. Probably still being afraid of stepping out, Noah stayed a further two months. In Genesis 8:16, God said to Noah leave the boat, the ground is dry. You see, you may have been drowning in your problems during 2011, but on this New Year’s Day, God says the same words he said to Noah thousands of years ago, get out! The waters that were drowning you have subsided. You can go out and be fruitful and multiply. The floods of last year may have destroyed all you had, but a new year is God’s message to you to start afresh and be fruitful and multiply. I know they say once beaten, twice shy. You don’t need to be shy. It’s a new year, get out. The waters that were drowning you have subsided.

Secondly, we find that God gives Moses instructions to construct a Tabernacle (Temple), which was a Tent which symbolized God’s abiding place amongst the people. After it was completed, God says to Moses, “Set up the Tabernacle on New Year’s Day” (Exodus 40:1). According to God, this was a special task, to be done on a special day, New Year’s Day!

Hundreds of years later, the Temple was defiled and corrupted by the people. King Hezekiah decides that things must change. “Then they began to cleanse the Temple of the LORD, just as the king had commanded. They were careful to follow all the LORD’s instructions in their work. The priests went into the sanctuary of the Temple of the LORD to cleanse it, and they took out to the Temple courtyard all the defiled things they found” (2 Chron. 29:15-16).

It appears that one of the “LORD’s instructions” was that this job must be done on New Year’s Day as we saw God’s instruction to Moses above. We read in 2 Chron 29:17 that they started the job on New Year’s Day!

But what does all this mean? Fast forward to the New Testament, we are told by Paul that we are The Temple. “Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Cor. 3:16)

So, on this New Year’s Day, God gives you and I the same message he gave to Moses thousands of years ago. “Set up the temple on New Year’s Day”. If you are not a believer already, God is making a call, set yourself up to be his temple, and he will come and dwell in you. If you are already a believer, he gives you the same message that the Levites were given thousands of years ago to purify the temple, starting on New Year’s Day. So, if you have defiled yourself through sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these, he says to you, “Purify yourself!”, starting on New Year’s Day. Have your started? Don’t wait for the 2nd.

Thirdly, there is another New Year’s Day event which is God’s message to humans today. This event is recorded in the book of Ezra. Ezra was a Jew who was living in exile in Babylon, together with many other Jews. Jerusalem, which was the place where the temple was, was falling apart, together with the temple. Remember we are the temple, and we are in the church. So the temple was a symbol of us, the believers, and Jerusalem a symbol of the church.

We read in Revelation 21:2, “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband”. Somewhere else, we are told several times that the church is the bride of Christ (Eph. 5:27; Rev. 19:7; Rev. 21:9). What does this have to do with you?

Well, after Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt, Ezra, who was a scribe decided to travel to Jerusalem so that he can learn more about the scriptures and teach his people. He decided to live Babylon on “New Year’s Day”! (Ezra 7:9)

This New Year’s Day, you too, like Ezra did thousands of years ago, can decide to start your journey back to church (Jerusalem). You may have been stuck in the Babylon of your lifestyle, your job, your friends, your sins. There are many believers stuck in Babylon, when Jerusalem, the church, needs them. But like Ezra, you can decide to start the journey back home, to church. The church needs you. Will you be like Ezra this New Year’s Day and go back to church? Ezra started his journey on New Year’s Day. It may be a few months before you get there. It took Ezra four months to get there. But you can start today!

May you look back next New Year’s Eve and say, “I am glad I was like Noah, who stepped out of the prison of the ark into a new world God had for him, or like Moses, who set up the temple on New Year’s Day, or like Ezra, who decided to leave the trappings of Babylon behind, and learn more about his God!”

Happy New Year! Happy 2012!