WEEKLY SERMON
New Years Eve/New Year’s Day
Revelation 1:7, 8; 21:5-7; 22:12-14
December 31, 2009 and January 1, 2010
First Devotion: Revelation 1:7-8
“Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even
those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn
because of him. So shall it be! Amen. "I am the Alpha and the Omega,"
says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the
Almighty."
The end and the beginning; the beginning and the end. That is what New
Year’s gatherings commemorate. The old year passes away, its days
counted up to 365 and then we start over with day one. Symbolically and
practically we close the full volume that reads 2009 and open the new
book with blank pages that begins 2010, waiting to see what this New
Year will bring. The tax year ends. Businesses close their books. People
look back and say, “Hope next year is better! It can’t get any worse.”
Or maybe they say, “I’m not looking forward to the new year. Things can
only get worse.” This year, we are also closing the 10 volume set that
began in the year 2000 and ended in 2009. The first decade of the new
millennium, that began with such fanfare and anticipation, now has
reached its final day.
What changes have happened in your life over the last 10 years? What
changes did 2009 bring? Are you ready to be done with the last year and
the last decade and move on to something new? As much as we might look
for a comfortable spot that we can settle into, sometimes hoping that
nothing will change, our human life lives with constant change, doesn’t
it? The very ticking of the clock is all about change – one second is
replaced by the next, one hour by the next, one year by the next.
Nothing is stable. Our life has a beginning and an end here in this
world and from the moment we are conceived in the womb of our mother to
the moment we die, our life is constantly changing.
Today we look for guidance and encouragement from the one for whom
change is a strange idea. I don’t mean to say that God is unaware of the
changes in our lives. He is sympathetic to each and every one of them.
But he himself does not change. He is constant; the same now, as he has
been, as he will be. He is ever present, the Almighty One, without
beginning and without end.
As we look back to the beginning of our existence as human beings, to
the day of the Creation of the Universe, God is already there, speaking
his creating word. As we look to the final day, when the clock will stop
and the final volume of our history will be closed forever, God will be
there, revealing himself to all people visibly, through the person of
his Son, Jesus Christ
When God’s own Son, opens up the sky and shows his powerful face to the
world, there will be great mourning. The one who was conceived by the
Holy Spirit and born of Mary in Bethlehem has, for the most part, been
rejected by the people he came to save. People have chosen their own
path away from God and sealed their own destination – eternal suffering
in hell, away from the joy and peace that God wishes everyone to enjoy.
What horror people will experience on the final day, when they see that
they are powerless to save themselves from the righteous judgment of God
and they have closed the door on the only way to heaven.
The Revelation given by Jesus Christ to his disciple, John, reveals a
completed picture of human history as it relates to God’s people. It is
a history of struggle, but a history of hope and ultimate victory for
those whose confidence rests in Jesus Christ. In fact the victory really
is the victory of Jesus Christ. We, his followers, just get to enjoy the
rewards of victory that he has won for us. By his grace, he leads us
victorious through the battles we face against doubt, fear, temptation,
and unbelief.
Jesus reveals himself as Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of
the Greek alphabet in which the New Testament was written. You see those
letters on our baptismal font, one set on top of the other. Knowing that
Jesus is the beginning and the end of all things, you might think of him
like a set of bookends, between which every volume of human history is
held together. He was before all things and all things came into
existence through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As the Judge of all,
appointed by his Father, the Word of God made flesh will bring history
to its fulfillment, sending away forever those who have rejected their
Creator and welcoming with joy those whom God has adopted into his
family forever.
Christ our Savior did not return in 2009. Will he in 2010? Let us rest
in the unchangeable mercy of our Savior as we enter this New Year. As
there were many changes in 2009 and in the first decade of the 2000’s,
so there will be many changes. That is certain. But Christ, God’s Son
has been crucified, our innocent substitute punished to save us. That
truth that we believe and put our confidence in seems like foolishness
and weakness to some, but for us it is God’s wisdom and God’s power. The
willing sacrifice of our innocent Savior has freed us from the curse our
sinfulness and it gives us the confidence to look ahead to a New Year
and know for certain that our God is with us, no matter what may happen
to our family and friends, to our health, to our community, to our
church. Our Savior, who is the Alpha and Omega, will not take his
protecting hand from us, but will rule us with his mercy, for our good,
in order to make us prepared for the eternal joy and peace he gives us.
Second Devotion: Revelation 21:5-7
He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then
he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." He
said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and
the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from
the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this,
and I will be his God and he will be my son.
New Year’s resolutions – Have you ever made them? Have you ever
been determined to make a positive change in your life and used the
start of the new calendar year as the jumping off point? How did it go?
New Year’s resolutions can be good, can’t they? I think we often
make fun of them, but sometimes we can make real, positive changes in
our lives, especially when it comes to our health, our organization of
time, or maybe our money management. What happens so often, though, is
that people set unrealistic goals for themselves and so even if they are
able to make a change for a short time, to follow through and make the
change permanent may not happen.
The resolution to change lifestyle habits is one thing; the
resolution to get rid of the old self of our sinful nature and put on
the new self guided by the Holy Spirit is another. The resolution to
turn away from our pride and self-centeredness and focus on God, is a
daily struggle because we are not yet the brand new people that we will
be one day when we live in heaven with our God. Part of being
unrealistic in this world is ignoring our sinful nature and thinking
that we have more power than we do. So often, so-called “New Year’s
Resolutions” depend on our own willpower and positive attitude. But our
sinful nature destroys our will to do what is truly good and turns our
attitude sour and hostile.
But Christ has promised that he is making everything new. He has
already renewed us in a sense. Because the Spirit has connected us to
Christ through faith in the gospel message, we are being renewed in the
image of our Creator. When Christ makes things new, they are really new,
not just the same thing from a different angle. Through this faith from
the Spirit, we have new eyes – no longer seeing the world and our lives
as though we are in darkness, but looking as if a bright light shines on
everything, making it crystal clear as God reveals his truth to us in
his Word. We have a new direction – we are no longer walking away from
God and into the arms of all that is evil, but by God’s grace we are
walking toward him – to the loving arms of our Father. We have a new
destination where we quench our thirsty soul – the spring of the water
of life. The drink of water that Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega,
gives to us is free and it quenches thirst forever. It is the endless
satisfaction of being with him in his home, under his care.
It is where we are now, at the transition from 2009 to 2010 – in
the care of him who always is always present, as he was in the beginning
and will be at the end. It is from him that we are receiving that
life-giving water. God promises that water will be your possession
forever if, by his grace, you endure to the end and overcome every
obstacle along the way. There will be a new heavens and a new earth for
us whom the Alpha and Omega has given the special privilege of being
children who receive the inheritance.
In 2010, as in 2009, the Word of Guide will be very important as
a lamp for our feet and a light for our path, so that we can walk that
path with God our Savior as our guide. May his words of grace refresh
you each day of the New Year as you see that you live justified before
God, no longer condemned, but freed from punishment. May that wonderful
news fill your hearts and minds daily so that you may serve the Alpha
and the Omega and long for that water which we will drink from in the
beautiful city of our God.
Jesus will finally make all things new at the end of our time. It
will be more than just flipping the calendar and entering a new year. It
will be a total transformation. It will be leaving weakness in the past
and entering into the perfect health and strength of our glorified
lives. It will be leaving a life in which all things eventually perish
and entering a life without death. The Alpha and Omega, who first gave
birth to our world and all its creatures, will give our existence a new
beginning without end.
Third Devotion: Revelation 22:12-14
"Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to
everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." Blessed are those
who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life
and may go through the gates into the city.
Some
people view a New Year as really just another day, the one after the
last day and before the next day. Nothing is really “new” except you
hang up a different calendar on the wall and start all over with
1/1/2010. The sun still rises and sets. People are still the same as
they always have been. Things don’t
really change. Those who were
skeptical about the second coming of Jesus at the time of the Apostle
Peter said as much: “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our
fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of
creation.” (1 Peter 3:4)
In a way, God said the same thing in the early days of our world: “As
long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer
and winter, day and night will never cease.” (Genesis 8:22) But he spoke
these words after a very significant event that changed everything. In
the days of the flood at the time of Noah, people thought nothing was
going to change. God carried out his judgment on the wicked people of
this world who had forsaken him. He will do so again. But even as he
saved Noah and his family, he will save all those who put their hope in
Christ.
The way God saves us is by giving us a robe to wear that has been
washed clean. It gets rid of the ground-in dirt of our guilt and
bleaches it pure and bright. How? In an earlier section of the
Revelation, John sees people in heaven wearing clean robes that they
have washed in the blood of the Lamb. It is only by trusting in the
innocent life of Christ, the Lamb of God, who lived and died for us,
that we can be washed clean and have the confidence to stand before him
when the endless New Year finally arrives.
Our Judge is our Savior and he has a reward to give to those who have
done what is good. But he makes it clear that there is no good without
faith in him. He sees how that faith that the Holy Spirit has planted in
us shows itself in our lives, as we love our family and neighbors, as we
struggle to stand up for what pleases God, as we honor our Savior by
being his faithful servants, making use of the lives he has given us to
be lights shining in this dark world of sin.
At the end, Christ will point to those of us chosen from before the
creation of the world and say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.
Take your inheritance.” He will point out that we have done good in his
name. Then we will take our rightful place and enter the gates of the
eternal city, the New Jerusalem, the dwelling of God with his people
forever. We will pick fruit from and enjoy the shade of the Tree of
Life.
The Alpha and Omega, who is the First and Last, the Beginning and the
End, is the Lord of our world’s history and of your personal history.
But he does not sit on his throne like a dictator or a puppet master,
cruelly playing with the citizens of his country. He has one goal in
mind: to bring you safely through the years of your life until you pass
through the heavenly gates.
Whatever happened in your life in 2009, it is done and cannot be
changed. The blood of your Savior is powerful enough to wash away all
your guilt and make your life clean in the eyes of the Almighty and
Eternal One. Whatever anxieties and fears about your life you had
because of 2009, put them to rest by giving them to the Alpha and Omega,
Christ your Savior. Commit day one of 2010 to your Lord in heaven in
your prayers. Cast all your cares on him, because he cares for you. Do
not be afraid. The one who is the Beginning and the End also chose to
have a beginning and an end in our time. He grew up and saw the months
and years pass, just as you have. He became one of us in order to bring
us before his judge’s bench at the end of time and declare: “You are
innocent!”
Just as the Alpha and Omega says, “Behold, I am coming soon”, so we say,
“Come, Lord Jesus, take us home.” Until that day arrives, let us spend
our time and energy in the pursuit of all that will make his kingdom
come to many more people, even as we ask God in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy
kingdom come”. To you, Lord, we do commit ourselves and as many days of
2010 with which you will bless us. Amen.
