New Year’s Eve December 30, 2019
Psalm 90
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You return man to dust and say,
“Return, O children of man!”
4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.
5 You sweep them away as with a flood;
they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning:
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.
7 For we are brought to an end by your anger;
by your wrath we are dismayed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?
12 So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
13 Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes,
establish the work of our hands!
In the Name of Jesus.
We go into the new year, but not alone.
We go into the new year with hopes and with fears.
Our nation’s employment numbers are as strong as they’ve been in our lifetime—we are optimistic. But the deficit is as high as its ever been. Pessimistic.
We see incredible improvements in medicine, and prospects of many more. Optimistic. But doctors are complaining about the constant flood of electronic reports they must fill out and we’ve made healthcare more expensive than ever. Pessimistic.
We are spending more resources than ever on education, demonstrating care for our youth. Optimistic. But our youth are being educated to think there is no value to life, even defenseless life in the womb, and that there’s no such thing as natural marriage. Pessimistic.
We go into the new year with hope and with fear, but we don’t go alone.
We go with him who has ransomed us with his own blood and made us his own people.
We go with him who has given us his own Name, promising that in Baptism he is with us, even until the end of the age. [Matthew 28]
We go with him who has told us that no one will separate us from his love. Romans 8:35:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
So we go into the new year not knowing what to expect, sometimes overly optimistic, sometimes overly pessimistic, for no one knows how to account for and number our days, but knowing to whom we belong.
And to this Lord to whom we belong, we have a prayer—a prayer sure and certain, for he has given it for us to pray. Psalm 90:35:
Make us glad, [O Lord,] for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Make us glad. Give us joy! We pray this because we know something else about how we go into the new year.
We go not only as those happy about strong employment numbers, or fearful due to the deficit; or optimistic about new technologies in medicine, or fearful about the way we’ve caused health care cost to skyrocket; or happy about more money being spent annually on education, or fearful about what the children are being taught, be as we go into the new year, we know something even more profound, more consequential to each of us.
We go into the new year as sinners. As people living in sinful flesh. As those who to think that the sin and baggage has been left behind in the past year, and yet we cannot deny that we are still in sinful flesh.
But as we go into the new year in our sinful flesh, we go not alone. There is one who is with us. Nothing, not tribulation, not distress, not persecution, not famine, not nakedness, not peril nor sword, will separate him from those he loves. As we go into the new year, he goes with us daily bestowing upon us a gift. Isaiah 30:15:
For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In repentance and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength.”
He, Jesus, the Holy One, is with us. And his gift to us every day is, Repentance and Rest.
Repentance as he accuses us with the Law, and as he turns us back to himself to hear his Word of forgiveness, to hear his voice justifying us, declaring us innocent before his Father in Heaven.
Rest, as he gathers us from the affliction and tribulation of our world, from the despair of our own sinful flesh, and to the comfort and hope of his Gospel, to the joy of his gift of life.
We go into the new year not alone. He who joins himself to us, his holy Body and Blood to our sinful bodies, his holy Body and Blood to forgive our sin and make us his own—he who joins himself to us is never apart from us.
We go with him. We enter the new year in joy—the joy of a sinner knowing that he is daily clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We go into the new year with the prayer on our lips that he gives us to pray. Psalm 90:
Make us glad, [O Lord,] for as many days as you have afflicted us, …
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes,
establish the work of our hands!
In the Name of Jesus.