The readings for today give us the end and the beginning; how fitting for New Year’s Eve. Today is the end: The last day of this year. It’s a time to look back and see what we’ve done and accomplished. This year is over. Anything we need to get done has to be done now. But tomorrow, we start fresh. Tomorrow is a whole new year full of new promise and new beginnings. By the end of December we’ve pretty much given up on the resolutions of the past year – although I did pretty well myself in that department. My 2005 resolution was to learn Spanish, and I bought a computer program and used it and I took an introduction to Spanish class and did well. I’m not fluent by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m better than I was last year at this time. My 2006 resolution is to start walking again for exercise. And tomorrow is a whole new year to start off fresh. As far as my accomplishments for the past year, I can’t complain much there either. I got married; we bought a house and moved. We started a whole year of firsts. We’re spending our first holiday season working out the family sharing thing. It’s actually been pretty easy. We did Thanksgiving with my grandmas, Christmas Eve with my folks, and Christmas day with his. Tonight is our first New Year’s Eve as a married couple, and tomorrow we start our first new year together. Good or bad, the past is over and we start off fresh together. The readings reflect the times. We start out with readings from the end times, and then we move into singing the Lord a new song for the new beginnings. Jesus is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end – the always. In the beginning was the word and the word became flesh. All things came to be through him. And continue. As we start the new year tomorrow, singing the Lord a new song, we should remember that every new day is a new start and a new creation. As we put the past day, the past year, behind us, we should keep in mind the new day, the new year to come and make the most of each new beginning. |