Reflecting On Walk With God

According to recent polls, about 15% of Americans were planning to ring in the new year at a religious service. Many more Americans, of course, celebrated New Year’s Eve with a party--from an intimate gathering at home to the massive celebration at Times Square. So is New Year’s a sacred or a secular holiday?

As with most holidays, the traditions are mixed. End-of-year parties boast ancient origins: The eating and drinking is designed to renew family and social ties for the coming year. We toast to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne” in order to say goodbye to the old and hello to the new. Dancing and kissing represent the renewal of time and life. The racket of horns, bells and gongs is an immediate intervention to scare away evil spirits. Wearing party hats and masks suggests protection from the evil forces throughout the new year.

In ancient lore, the purpose of all this New Year’s Eve merrymaking is to create a temporary period of social confusion, chaos and overturning of the normal order. The presumption is that the forces of life are waning and must be renewed annually. The nation’s New Year’s Day football games echo the mock combats between the forces of life and death staged eons ago by our ancestors. Even the names of these contests show our interest in the renewal of the Earth and its resources--Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Sun Bowl. This theme is likewise carried out when we express our desire for beauty and perfection in the coming year by crowning beauty queens, such as those at the Rose Parade.

Other traditions come from our Greco-Roman heritage. The Greeks used a symbol we recognize as Father Time. Also known as Chronos, he is depicted with a long white beard, a scythe and an hourglass. The new year babe in diapers is Chronos’ counterpart, the fertility god Bacchus. He is pictured as a baby in a winnowing basket to emphasize his ability to bless the harvest.

The Roman god Janus, for whom January was named, is a striking symbol for the new year. Janus--whose name means “door”--is depicted with two faces, because a door leads both in and out. Thus he represents looking backward and forward. His temple in Rome was laid out on an east-west axis, so his two-faced statue was always looking toward the rising or setting of the sun.

Many of these ancient assumptions are inconsistent with Christian teachings. The creation account in Genesis 1 teaches that God brought order out of chaos when he created the Earth and everything in it. Unlike other gods whose work is cyclical, God saw that everything was good and then rested. What God set in place does not need to be renewed. Rather, it needs mankind to be a good steward over it.

According to the above account in Genesis, the first recorded words of God to man were a blessing, along with directions to care for the Earth and its contents. Man was not commanded to conduct renewal rites. It is Jesus’ job to sustain the Earth. “. . . [A]ll things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:16b, 17a).

Accordingly, the Christian church was reluctant to introduce a festival on New Year’s Day. However, since Jesus would have been circumcised--and named--on the eighth day after his birth, Jan. 1 was finally designated as “Holy Name.” On this day Christians honor the name of Jesus, “the Lord saves,” which summarizes the entire gospel drama.

For Christians, it is natural to pause at this time of year and reflect on our walk with God. It is appropriate for us to renew our relationship with God and others. But it is not necessary for us to renew the forces that sustain the Earth. As God said to Noah, “As long as the Earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” (Genesis 8:22).

As we enter the new millennium, may we experience God’s blessing and complete the work God gave us to do.

*

On Faith is a forum for Orange County clergy and others to offer their views on religious topics of general interest. Submissions, which will be published at the discretion of The Times and are subject to editing, should be delivered to Orange County religion page editor Jack Robinson.