As I like to write on the basis of biblical texts, I do not want to write about the new year, where in the scriptures I could find a passage, a narrative, a psalm or any other reference that supports me to write that The passage from one year to another represents a new beginning, a new life, the time to take resolutions, a kind of magical turn where things that went wrong in 2018 were left behind and everything becomes new in 2019
I know I don’t need an explicit verse on a topic to be able to speak it biblically, if I could just draw the concept in the center of several texts, but I still have problems. I find no reference in the Old Testament that the change from one year to the next has a miraculous meaning. Apparently, the Jews marked the passage from one year to the next (which occurred on the first day of the seventh month, apparently) by calling the sound of trumpets for a solemn meeting, where sacrifices were offered to the Lord (see Lv 23:23-25; 29:1-6).
- There is much controversy among scholars about the Jewish New Year.
- As to when and how it was held.
- The main reason is the lack of additional information about the event.
- Given the large amount of information about religious festivals such as Easter and Pentecost.
- Which shows that the New Year’s Eve feast was not so important.
- In any case.
- The New Year was celebrated in Israel as a memorial to the Lord.
- Entitled to sacrifice and trumpet calling.
- I find nothing to say that the Israelites promised that in this call they would do in the new year what they did not do in the year they have just finished.
- In fact.
- What I find is that the Israelites had to love God and do their will all year.
- Every year of their lives.
- The celebration was probably a celebration of gratitude to God.
In the New Testament, we found absolutely no sign that Christians were celebrating New Year’s Eve, but does Paul have a complaint that Galatian believers, following Jewish customs, observed: days, months, times, and years?(Gal 4, 10).
I can understand New Year’s cults and festivities as cultural expressions of Christians who take the opportunity to give a spiritual look at their lives and churches over the past year, as well as next year’s goals and goals. : If I don’t walk with God in 2018, do I have to wait until the end of the year to promise to do in 2019 what I didn’t do during the year?What the Bible tells me is this, is it the day of salvation and what?Now is the time to repent and return to God, and what should I seek from the Lord?I can find him (Isaiah 55:6; 2 Corinthians 6:2; Hey 3:13).
One of the first of Luther’s 95 theses was that repentance (penance) is a constant state of mind in the Christian and not a unique mortification made in confessional or Mass. Or at the end of the year, can I add a straw??
However, we can use the cultural moment in a positive way, to thank God for the blessings poured out over the past year and ask Him to bless us the year that begins. Here’s my suggestion of a prayer to say at the end of the year. Year:
“Lord, I thank you for all the blessings I have received in 2018. I sincerely apologize for all the bad things I’ve done and for the good things I haven’t done this year that ended [maybe it would be nice to make a list to make it clear that I’m just talking]. I ask you for mercy and mercy to walk in your ways in 2019, so that I may repent and correct myself immediately after my mistakes, and that I do not seek excuses and deliver what I know I must do, so that by the end of 2020 I do not have to come and repeat this prayer. In the name of Jesus, amen?.
A 2019 blessed for all.