So what's another New Year

I think I have a weird family. When just about every other family in town is gathered together around the dinner table on the first day of the new year , enjoying a feast, taking selfies and we-fies, we are each doing our own thing. Two are somewhere out of the house, and the remaining one prefers to go to the gym at dinner time, so that leaves me and me eating alone at the table. Does sound rather pathetic, doesn't it?
Oh, but we already had our family thingy over Christmas. Though it's kind-of ironic, considering the children are all grown up and grown out of the "religious stuff". But at least there was a family gathering. So I guess it's really no big deal, not getting together (again) barely a week later to celebrate a(nother) new year.  After all, we still stay in the same house what, at least for now. We still eat together, when we can, if we can. We still celebrate birthdays and other occasions out. For such times, I should be, I am, always grateful, mindful that they are precious moments to be treasured, for one day I will not be around with them anymore, or vice-versa.

Anyway what's so special about another new year? No, I am not going to grouch about new year, after grouching about Christmas. Or I will end up being branded a sour old cynic. Actually I got a lot of good wishes for Christmas and New Year, as I am sure everybody did. It's very easy to just click and share happy thoughts and well-intentioned messages with the whole wide world. I even received greetings from people I don't know, like the sales rep I called only once many moons ago to enquire about some advert. Honestly after awhile, I 'tuned off'; I didn't click on the (umpteenth) video-clip blasting season greetings, I stopped typing thank you and same to you replies on social media platforms at the risk of being considered rude or churlish, I deleted lots of photos and images that after awhile blurred into just...well..images.

I thought the best greeting was the shot of a young child in a 'scolding' pose, with 1 finger wagging - see the pix for full effect... Now this is so......real.  There was another one of a clock with a hand that moves from 2017 to 2018. On the 2017 face were all the negative words like stress, corruption, hate, diseases, failures etc. And as the hand moves, the negatives are replaced with the opposite/corresponding positives like healthy, successful, prosperous, exciting, hopeful, bright... and then fireworks come on with the challenge... You have 12 new chapters, 365 new chances waiting for you.... I mean, it's all very nicely done, graphically. Only at the end of it, I found myself thinking...now if only it were that easy - all the past bad stuff wiped out with 1 swoop of the hand to be replaced automatically with all the good, just over 24 hours.

Ok, ok. I am being a grouch. Seriously I appreciate all the wonderful wishes and prayers for a great year ahead. And I wish the same for all fellowmen. Certainly deep within every human heart is the innate desire for a "good" life, and as Alexander Pope accurately puts a finger on it, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast". Every culture in the world celebrates new year, in their own ways whether it's on January 1st or any other day of their own tradition. And it's called a new year for obvious reason - out with the old, in with the new -  we get another chance, a shot at something (hopefully) better than what we got in the past.

Still I am sure there are many people out there who don't feel obliged to celebrate new year with family, loved ones or friends. In fact there are probably many out there who don't have family, loved ones or anybody whom they can call friend. Perhaps even if they do have, they don't find anything particularly special in the 1st day of a new year to celebrate. Indeed isn't every day a new day that can be celebrated? So on second thought, I guess my family isn't that weird really.

The truth of the matter is sometimes life just doesn't seem to get better, whether it's by the day or by the year.  So after the euphoria of exploding fireworks and happy feasting on that one first day of 365 days, we stop passing on beautiful platitudes as life settles down to a predictable ho-hum, more of the same same stuff, and the new year turns old, even as quickly as the second day dawns. Then when we get to count down to the next new year, we start shaking hands and clicking share-buttons on our hand-phones again, and the whole merry-go-round goes... one more round. But a new year doesn't automatically become better, no matter how ardently we wish it would or how hard we work at it. That's why frankly, after awhile all the feel-good messages sound rather hollow to me.

Especially when faced with the reality of difficult circumstances, like this street friend of mine whom I have known for a long while, from the days he was battling drugs and health issues. He had quietly decided one day to trust in the God we talked about every Saturday as we feed people such as he. Things actually got better for my friend after that, I was so happy to hear he had gone back to stay with his relatives when he came occasionally to 'hang out' with us. Until just before Christmas, he told me he had been kicked out because they discovered he went to church. He, for one, has no cause to celebrate the new year, which from the looks of it, has just gone from good to bad and in all likelihood will only get worse.

I didn't know how to help my friend, I could only cry with him, pray for him, and tell him what I knew of our God - that He never leaves nor forsakes us, even if the whole world rejects us for our faith. Because His name is Emmanuel, God with us. Just 2 days before the new year, as I sat with my friend again, he was in such a state I couldn't make out what he was saying. Turned out he wanted to be 'certified officially' as a Christian; he was prepared to follow Jesus all the way, even if ostracized, persecuted or imprisoned. I looked at this man - skinny, shabby and unshaven. For a brief moment, I am ashamed to say I doubted him, I wondered if he was high on drugs. But my heart connected and right there, in the smelly back-alley, I remembered the words spoken from heaven over Jesus at His baptism, "This is my Son, whom I love, with Him I am well-pleased..."  (Matthew 3:17) Who am I to judge this brother? God's rebuke to me was clear - an illiterate down-n-out street vagabond had displayed much stronger faith than I, who had spent the last 16 years of my life listening to countless sermons in a comfortable church building.

I knew it would be a good year for my friend after all. For as I told him, he did not have to go anywhere or do anything to get an 'official certificate' from anybody in this world that he is a follower of the Way, the Life, and the Truth. I could assure him with all certainty that the very moment he confessed with his mouth and
believed in his heart that Jesus is Lord, his name was already recorded in His book of life forever more before God and all the angels in heaven - because God said so. And now there only remained his getting baptized, as a visible act of being reborn, from death to life, from old to new. That's something to celebrate indeed.

Just like Christmas, we don't need to wait for January 1st to celebrate or to bless anyone with good wishes and prayers. In fact, any day is a good time to celebrate the goodness of a God who gives, to all who believe, new life everyday.

"The one who is victorious will...be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels" - Revelation 3:5