There's Nothing Magical about January 1st

...or is there?

“There’s nothing magical about January 1st.” 

They’re right, you know, the New Year’s naysayers who suggest making the changes you need to make whenever the time is right rather than getting swept up into the commercialization of self-improvement that storms our culture every January. January 1st is not the only good time to resolve to eat healthier, move your body more, or learn to say, “no.” And I am right on that soapbox with them, soundly renouncing the drive to spend hundreds of dollars on goal planners, finance planners, daily planners, pens, highlighters, a new Bible, and a new notebook. There’s nothing more freeing for a Type-B creative who’s been masquerading as a planner-loving Type-A than to release the facade and forego a new planner on January 1st. 

And yet, despite being right, they’re a little wrong, too. 

From the beginning of God’s covenantal relationship with his people, there have been built-in rhythms, holidays, festivals, and special sacrifices intended to teach God’s people something true about the world we live in and to point their hearts toward him. After Jesus’s resurrection, the early church continued this wisdom by developing a new church calendar to highlight truths of Jesus’s ministry with new holidays–many of them tacking right on to pagan holidays in an effort to juxtapose the contrasts between worldly celebration and Godly worship. 

And so, though there is nothing inherently magical about January 1st, there is wisdom in leaning into the blessing of rhythm offered by the early church Fathers, the Old Testament covenant, and yes even the fifteen million planner makers you receive emails from. Having a fresh start does spark motivation, and maybe for you that first day of the New Year is just the right time to join with the rest of the world and start or stop a thing or two.

In fact, I’d venture to propose that the rhythm of New Year’s resolutions, renewing values-based focus, and starting fresh is not the problem, but rather the method we try to engage the rhythm with. Typically, our New Year’s resolutions are driven by guilt and shame–a vow to start having more self-control so we like ourselves more at the end of the year. This shame and guilt message is like heroin for the advertisement industry who preys on your fear of being inadequate, unloveable, or insignificant to drive up sales of whatever product they’re marketing. 

For the first time this year, I read Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Story firsthand (rather than watching a movie or play with creative liberties mixed in). One of the things that stuck out to me most in this story is when Ebenezer vows to “keep Christmas” all year. The audience all can deduce that Mr. Scrooge is not vowing to keep a decorated Christmas tree, wrap presents, and sing carols 365 days per year. Instead, there is an inherent virtue being communicated in hyperbole in the holiday of Christmas. Generosity, light coming into darkness, family togetherness, and joy are virtues Ebenezer comes to value through learning to value the holiday of Christmas.

So, what might be the virtue or focus communicated through the New Year, or Epiphany for those more focused on the church calendar, that we can carry with us through the rest of the year? God has indeed been revealed, the divine stepped into the ordinary and brought heaven with him, and we all can stop or start something with the intention of coming into that revelation more deeply. 

Instead of shame-based motivations to achieve empire-driven goals (be skinnier, be more successful, produce more, etc), I wonder what our experience of the New Year and Epiphany would be if we slowed down to examine our hearts for where God is looking to reveal himself to us this year. What would it be like to have resolutions that are convictions and invitations from the Spirit himself, rather than misguided ways to use shame to produce our own perception of the best version of ourselves? 

I had a baby last January, and it was the first year in a long time that I purchased no planner or new notebook, but just moved right on forward into the year as if the New Year never happened. It was freeing, to say the least; so this year, vowing to continue my rejection of the commercialization of New Year’s Resolutions, I had no intention on setting a “word of the year.” However, the time with my family over the holidays (as time with family often does) churned me up in unexpected ways and I left the Christmas season aware and curious about what was driving my emotional reactions to these dynamics that were not new at all. 

That curiosity was still sitting with me on Sunday, January 1st when I heard a sermon preached through the whole story of the Bible. If I’m honest, I couldn’t tell you the preacher’s main point, because when he read these words, the Spirit of God and I were off on our own little rabbit trail,

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be thirsty, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” John 6:35

In an instant, it’s as though what the Spirit had been whispering on my heart all through the holidays became abundantly clear: hunger was my problem. My emotional reaction was revealing a hunger in me for something–I’m not even quite clear on what that something is–but Jesus was longing to satisfy my hunger by giving me everything I need. 

Satisfied. 

The word leapt forth, and has stuck–even well into January. There was no intentionality behind choosing the word except the intention to listen well to the Spirit who lives and walks within me. It seems abundantly clear to me that my “word of the ____” (time period to be determined) is satisfied–that the Lord and I are on a journey to find the version of myself that is most at rest in his love, most satisfied by his presence, able to be authentically present instead of hungering for some emotional high in every social interaction. 

I don’t know what God’s invitation is for you this year. Perhaps you have set New Year’s resolutions–maybe most of you have already broken them. I’d love to invite you to not throw out the baby with the bathwater though, and take your “failure” to the Lord and inquire of him what he’d have you set your intention on next. It may lead you to the word of the year, or it may settle you on one next right step that will carry you only to next week. 

I assure you, though, that Jesus as the Manna of our life will provide just enough to carry us as far are we are ready to go. And then, when we’re ready, he’ll be right there with another basketful ready to carry us forth again.