New Year, 2022: Jesus Christ is the Reason for the New Year
Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21
Do you sometimes wonder why the first of January inaugurates New Years, this time around, New Year, 2022? Why can’t we celebrate the year 2345 or 2222? Welcome to a Christian understanding of New Year: Christ is the reason for the New Year!
We celebrate 2022, because we, Christians, take our reference point about time and eternity from Jesus Christ. When we say 2022 A.D., (In the year of the Lord – Anno Domini [A.D.]), two presuppositions undergird the celebration of New Year: the recognition of the God of Time and the human participation in God’s Time. Without God, there will be no time, and without creation, time will be useless!
The triple blessings of our first reading situate the role of God in time: “The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace” (Numbers 6:24-26)! The first blessing links us to our past – God – because the very first thing God did at creation was “to bless” his creation: original blessing! This first blessing takes us back to the beginning, to God, our Creator, as the source of every blessing. No wonder, New Year Day is a day of blessing – triple blessing. The second blessing makes God present and constant in human life and in creation. The “face” of God which “shines” on his people is the sustenance and protection God provides for his people, that is why Israel has the “bread-of-the-faces” (lechem haPānīm) – the 12 loaves of bread put in front of the Tabernacle, so that God’s face may shine on Israel (Leviticus 24:1-9; Matthew 12:4) – the twelve faces/tribes of Israel; that is, that God will always remember Israel. Now, you see why we are all in God’s house today, so that God will remember us! The third blessing projects us into the future. Today, our broken lives and world need “wholeness” to hold together; this wholeness is shalom-peace. God alone guarantees peace in every generation—the blessing of peace!
Each one of us is known to and recognized by God. Our first reading (Numbers 6:27) assures us that God destines us for blessings: “So shall they invoke my name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.” The blessing brought in by each New Year is given by God, the God whose Son became, at Christmas, one of us to guarantee God’s blessings upon and among us. Saint Paul puts the triple blessings in a Christian language – “the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 13:14). Our blessings go back to Jesus Christ, based on the love of God and continues in the Holy Spirit.
The “fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4) of which Paul speaks, in our second reading, links God and human beings in time, God’s “time”. God’s “time” celebrates God’s intervention in human history: the adoption of everybody as sons and daughters of God (Galatians 4:5) through Jesus Christ. God uses a woman to bring about the birth of his Son – “born of a woman”: the first point of unity between the divine nature and human beings. So, instead of just the blessings of the sons and daughters of Israel, it is the blessing of the whole of humanity through Jesus and Mary. Exactly the reason why today is also the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
New Year, 2022, reminds us of God’s reign among us and the Motherhood of Mary as our point of entry into Divine drama: “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Mary’s peace was guaranteed because the Word of God took possession of her heart and she pondered on it always. For you and me, our realization of the God of time and eternity, and our realization of the incarnation of God’s Son, need to be treasured in our hearts, so that God’s “Word” will reign in our lives into eternity. Mary is our example, let us imitate her!
Happy New Year, 2022!