New Year

As we enter 2012 many people see the new year as a fresh start. It's as if the slate has been wiped clean and there is a chance to start over. The more I think about that though, the more I realize how false it is. Just because the year is new, it doesn't erase the past. Reputations are as they were in 2011, decisions that were made last year will still have effects now. But in some ways the new year is a chance to make changes. As a symbolic day, the start of a brand new year, it is a day that we decide to do things differently.

Biblically there was something called the year of Jubilee. God had told the people that every seventh year was to be a sabbath year and the land was supposed to be able to rest for that year. After a cycle of seven sabbath years there would be the Jubilee, this is the fiftieth year. In the Jubilee year a fresh start was given. Debts were erased, land that had been sold was returned to the ancestral family. Many of us would love the Jubilee year.

A fresh start is possible. The Bible says in Isaiah, "Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow;" Jesus desires to rescue us from the past. To save us from sin, and set us free from the death it leads to. In Christ there is a fresh start. He doesn't erase the consequences for our past actions, but He releases us from the guilt and shame they cause. He can set us free from the death that is the wage of sin, and deliver us to life which is the gift of God as Romans tells us.

In Christ a fresh start is possible. In Christ the old self can be crucified and we can be raised to new life in Jesus. Will you begin the new year with new life?

Peace be with you