Celebrating New Life, Even in the New Year!

I expect that everyone knows that Wednesday, January 1, is New Year’s Day. Yes, this is a national holiday and a day off work. Yes, New Year’s Day is a day of football, and a day of some special foods. But, the reason people celebrate is that the calendar has advanced another year. The year 2024, with all of its trials and tribulations, is gone . . . hopefully. The year 2025 brings hope and dreams of a new start, of a new beginning, hope for a new life.

But. are those hopes reality, or just wishful thinking? I asked in my New Year’s Eve sermon, “Are all our financial debts satisfied and gone simply because the year changed?” “Are the illnesses and injuries which plague our daily lives totally in the past?” “Have broken relationships been healed, just because the year 2024 is complete, and we are now in 2025?”

You know, and I know, that just because the calendar turns, this does not mean that our troubles have ended. Life’s pain and suffering are the result of our sin and our rebellion against the Creator and Lord of all. We should not be surprised by our trials and our troubles. Nevertheless, the whole world does still celebrate the New Year, because we do hope for a new future.

However, we DID witness new life at First Lutheran Church on Sunday, December 29. Paisley Mae Lunt (my second cousin, 3 times removed J ) was baptized. In John 3, Jesus surprises Nicodemus. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." . . . 5 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3, 5). Jesus says a person is born again, they have new life, by water and by the Spirit, through baptism.

On Pentecost Day Peter teaches the crowd in Jerusalem. “38 . . . "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." (Acts 2:38-39) When Paisley was baptized she was forgiven. She received the gift of the Holy Spirit. She was called as a child of God. She was given new life.

In his Small Catechism Dr. Martin Luther quotes Romans 6:4 in regard to baptism. Please read with me verses 3 and 4 of Romans 6. “3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Through baptism, through dying with Jesus to sin and rising with Him through faith, we walk in newness of life.

Then Luther applies Romans 6 to the daily life of a child of God. ”What does such baptizing with water indicate? It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” In other words, God’s gift of new life in baptism is not a one-time gift. New life in Jesus is lasting. And, the new life which God works in us, by Jesus’ dying and rising, by the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, this new life shows in how we live. Every day we live in repentance. The old sinful person in us dies. The new person who trusts Jesus’ forgiveness arrives. Every day we live in repentance. We turn from sin and we turn to God in faith and in love.

What did you do on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day? Many were in Times Square. BUT many were also in worship, receiving God’s grace and being strengthened for the new lives which God gives us. If you really want to celebrate something new, live in the grace God gives you in your baptism! You don not have to wait for the calendar to change. Because God loves us, we arise as new people every morning, through repentance, through faith, through the grace of God in Jesus.