When Change becomes a Blessing!
Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21
Philosophers pride themselves in discovering that “change is the only thing permanent or constant,” but theologians mock their ignorance because they fail to know that God does not change. Scientists celebrate every discovery and innovation, Christians wait patiently for education to catch up with the knowledge of God. Universities keep multiplying, but common sense is as rare as ever. Wealth and money increase by the day, but poverty kills more people today than ever before. More Nobel prizes are won today, but violence and strive show no signs of abating, making Mr. Nobel’s peace dream remote. In fact, who is changing who?
The good news is that there is nothing called “change;” there is only God. Last year, it was I who was one year younger, not change. Few New-Years ago, I was in primary school, but I am now a worker. Some years down the road, I will be dead, but the celebration of New Year will continue. Honestly, I keep changing, so I am not constant. How can “change” be constant when it is I who experience change, while change remains unaffected? I’ll tell you what: “change” is a vehicle that makes my movement to God possible. The fact that I look different today than ten years ago simply means that I am closer to my destination, God, today than I was yesterday. That I will die someday means that change itself has its limitation, it cannot keep changing forever, it stops at some point, at death. How wrong we are when we measure a journey by means of transportation!
New Year is a celebration of our nearness to our destination; that is, a reminder that we are pilgrims on our way to God. It is when we are with God that we shed off change, our vehicle to God. You see, permanence and changelessness is God! If anything at all, the journey of the Shepherds to see God-man, Jesus, teaches us that all roads lead to him who is changeless and the author of change itself – God. The journey of the Shepherd came to an end when they met Jesus. In their meeting with Jesus, they acquired immortality and changelessness – their story and the news they carried continue forever. In this connection, it was Jesus who said “this will be told in memory of her,” talking about the woman who anointed his feet! To be separated from God is change; to be with God is changelessness. Whatever is done with God and for God takes an eternal dimension, just as God is eternal.
The journey of life, with its necessary vicissitudes, is not discoverable to science because it is a matter of revelation. It is the unchanging constant, God, who provides this knowledge because it exists outside of time, but time makes the impact of our journey through life felt through its vagaries. The GPS (Global Positioning System), which keeps human beings on track as they travel through life, is blessing. At creation, God blessed his creation to set creation in motion through time. Our first reading, on this New Year Day, 2025, begins with an ancestral blessing. A blessing that takes its cue from God’s blessing since creation.
According to our first reading, every “blessing” does three things: 1) recognizes that only God can keep life safe on its journey through time before it returns to God; so, the very first blessing says, “May God keep you.” The second blessing emphasizes the fact that only the presence of God assures that one doesn’t derail in the journey of life; hence, the second blessing says, “May God’s face shine upon you” because the face of God equals the presence of God. The third blessing asks for “peace” – shalom. “Shalom,” even though it is translated as peace in English, means “wholeness.” In other words, “shalom” asks God to be present to every facet of human life, health, business, spirituality, etc.
If the blessings of God came directly from God to his creatures at creation, it continues in the world in two forms, 1) parents and all well wishers blessing one another, no less priests like Moses in the first reading, 2) also angels who announced peace to the shepherds at the birth of Jesus, according to our gospel reading. Through the original blessings of God, creation has become the source of God’s blessing and the presence of God’s goodness among his creatures.
The epitome of New Year Day is the realization that every human being is a child of God, the unique blessing celebrated on New Year Day. This is the fundamental change that has taken place outside of time. When Paul talks about “the fullness of time,” in our second reading, he does not mean time measure by the motions of luminaries, it means the intervention of God, to put a stop to physical time, and do something new – the adoption of every human being as God’s child. This change is the blessing we talk about; it is the New Year we celebrate, that God has divinized human beings; that God is one of us and gives us a new direction and destiny in life, which go beyond physical time to timelessness with him. This timelessness, when a definitive stop will be put to time, and God will intervene again to do away with change because he himself is the changelessness that will happen to every human being.
Proclaim it loud and clear; speak about it with absolute conviction: you and I have been blessed by God, so our compass through life is God himself. To say “Happy New Year” is to recognize the triple blessings of God upon our lives, blessings of protection, presence and peace; to celebrate “New Year” is to celebrate our adoption as children of God, our eternal identity; to feast on a New Year Day is to acknowledge that God is the Master of time, and he intervenes in time to bring about something new, something not seen before.
Since you and I are God’s children, it means we must imitate God. Our God blesses, and we have seen his triple blessings in the first reading. This New Year, 2025, it is our turn to bless others and not curse them. Since our God blesses us with peace, we all need to become architects of peace. Because God watches over us, let us become our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. When we do these, then we can truly say that “change” is a blessing because our old selves have given way to our new identity in Jesus Christ – sons and daughters of God.
Happy New Year, 2025, to you all!
Assignment for the week:
Bless someone with a meaningful and memorable gift this week or spend the whole week blessing and not cursing everyone you meet.