+ New Year’s Eve – December 31^st, 2024 +

Isaiah 30:15-17; Romans 8:31-39; Luke 12:35-40

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature…is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they find their rest in Thee.” – Augustine

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Ecclesiastes 3:11.

J.R.R. Tolkien paraphrases Augustine. Augustine paraphrases Solomon’s God-given wisdom in Ecclesiastes. The common thread in those quotes is a sense of longing, a hope, a void that cannot be filled, except by the life and joy and peace that comes to us in Christ born for us and crucified for us. All true meaning and joy and peace come to us in Christ alone.

There’s something about New Year’s eve that stirs that sense of hope and longing in us again. There seems to be more than a need to celebrate the arrival of a new year, at least in some way. Whether you watch the ball drop, blast off fireworks, or simply watch the clock and calendar change hands and pages, there’s an unspoken, yet universal instinct of longing.

Why? Because in one way or another humans are all hoping that this new year will be better than the last.  We want life to be better. More love, less hate. More unity, less strife. More compassion and mercy, less finger-pointing and so on.

In other words, we yearn for the advent of a better world, where peace is the rule, where the rulers are just, and where just and caring people surround us. Where all the sad things come untrue and death is undone. Solomon was right in Ecclesiastes when he revealed God’s wisdom: we hunger for a world made right again. We long for the new heavens and new earth.

This is what Paul is getting at earlier in Romans 8 when he says that all creation – and we ourselves along with it – groan as we eagerly await the adoption and redemption of our bodies. Groaning. Yearning. Waiting. Longing.

On this New Year’s eve, what is it that you find yourself longing for? For less doctor visits and more visits from friends or loved ones? For reconciliation from the cold silence between you and someone you care about? For an end to the endless cruelty people show one another? For the unborn to be born safely and adopted? For your aches and pains to be a little less achy? For food on your table and in your fridge?

What is it that you hope for? For those pesky, recurring sins to just go away? For your shame and guilt and hurts to haunt you no longer? For one morning where you wake up and your griefs and sorrows and sins are no more?

Whatever it is, these aren’t bad things to long for, and pray for. Though at times, it feels a lot like an itch that we simply cannot scratch away. One way or another, we find ourselves looking for that magic potion that will finally make the itch stop. But it won’t.

Groaning. Yearning. Waiting. Longing. Those aren’t unique to Christians. Indeed, everyone from every walk of life has that in common. What is unique, however, is the answer God reveals in the Scriptures. What he sends for us in a manger in Bethlehem. What is unique, and found nowhere and in no one else, is the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ himself.

So Paul addresses our longing with a view of Jesus’ manger and cross born for you.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 

Notice that Paul doesn’t make a long list of what he means by “all these things.” He paints with a broad brush so that we see in that little phrase all the things that plague us – whatever troubles, trials, griefs, burdens, and sins we have born in 2024 – and whatever will come our way in 2025. What then shall we say to these things? Shall we fear the unknown and uncertain fearful things that will take place in the year to come? Shall or anything or anyone else in all creation dwarf the love of God for you in Jesus? No. Whatever fears, worries, and longings you have for the new year – be they good or bad – they cannot outweigh the depth of God’s love for you in Jesus crucified.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 

No…for in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As we stare back at this year’s failures and losses and fears, we hope, we pray, we yearn…there has to be, there must be, something better. We peer forward to this coming year’s resolutions and goals and plans, and we know there just has to be, there must be, something better. And there is.

Only we won’t find it within ourselves. We won’t find it in the empty promises or resolutions of men. We won’t find it anywhere else in all creation except here, in our Lord’s word, water, body and blood. We find it in the God-man, Jesus Christ. Jesus alone, is the answer to the unceasing, longing of our weary souls. Christ alone is the One who swallows the bitter disappointments of last year and pours us the wine of hope for this year. Christ alone feeds and fills constant hunger for a world made right again. Take, eat. This is my body, given for you. Take, drink. This is the blood of the new testament shed for you. Here all is well.

In Christ, all our past disappointments are answered by his all-encompassing mercy. All our present worries are answered by his all-abiding presence and protection. All our future wants and desires for a world made right are assured. Fear not. Christ is coming again, soon. And along with him, a new heavens and new earth. The hopes and fears of all the years are met with mercy  in Christ tonight, and every night ahead of you in 2025.

So, today, tomorrow, this year, next year, or the years to come…Do not be afraid. Let not your hearts be troubled. For Jesus, the God who is, who was, and who is to  come promises…

Lo, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.

A blessed 7^th day of Christmas…and a blessed coming new year to each of you…

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.