New Year's Eve 2017

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: 1 Peter 1:23
Theme: Life in the Living Word




Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”1 That Scripture intends to give us enduring comfort in an environment of change. Another calendar year has passed. It has been filled with joys and griefs, achievements and failures, realised hopes and shattered dreams. To some, it’s a year to be forgotten. Good riddance! To others it was a year to be cherished- something to be savoured for a long time. For some, important milestones were accomplished. For others, the year may seem to have cruised by without anything too noteworthy happening. Such lack of excitement may be just what the doctor ordered!

The end of a calendar year is a good opportunity to take stock. It’s beneficial to reflect on the passage of time and try to wrap our minds around what it means for our individual and communal existence. With each passing year there is a cumulative collection of experiences to assess. Grieving is part of stocktaking, but so is giving thanks. The Scriptures call us beyond a parochial view of our lives and the world. We’re not to look only at our personal prosperity or adversity. A biblical worldview sees the presence of the living Christ in a dying world at the heart of all things.

So, how do we understand this fleeting time we have on earth and the role we have? The Holy Spirit gives us some clarity through the apostle’s words this evening, “You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, ‘All men are like grass, and their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.’”2 He calls us to repentance, reminding us we are sinners, reminding us we are mortal. In contrast, God’s truth, and those saved by it, will endure.

There is a call to earnestness throughout the Scriptures. Paul writes, “You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”3 And John says, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.”4 We should not assume that Christ’s Second Coming is a long way off, or that we’ll live to a ripe old age either.

Consider briefly what a relative reality human lifespan is. Noah’s Father Lamech was 182 years old when Noah was born5. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came6. That cataclysmic event radically diminished human lifespans. Still, Moses was 80 years old when he led the Israelites out of Egypt7. In contrast, some human lives never escape their mother’s wombs. And yet, because with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years as a day8, each life is exactly as valuable to Him as the value of the life of His only-begotten Son.

Knowing this, Peter said earlier in his letter, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”9 And what is this inheritance that is kept in heaven for us? It is life in abundance. It is the life we already have through the gospel. We receive it in the promise of forgiveness. We receive it in the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. When we receive these gifts, time becomes irrelevant because we are at the threshold of eternity.

Above all, the good news of the crucified and risen Jesus is what we prize as we move into a new year. We can never understand it too well or prize it too highly. The world, even those who are well-meaning, always have a different message, a different “gospel”. The true gospel, the Christmas gospel, the Easter gospel, the good news of Immanuel, God-with-us is NOT located in human effort to be more kind, tolerant, and loving. The gospel is not human obedience or piety. The gospel is not human striving against selfishness and greed. The gospel IS Christ for us, on our behalf, and in our place. The gospel is Christ among us as Absolver, as Defender, as Comforter. The gospel is the declaration of righteousness to sinners for the sake of Jesus’ sacrifice. The gospel is the announcement of freedom from divine condemnation. The gospel is thoroughly and unequivocally God’s activity through Christ and in Christ. Of course, transformed and renewed human hearts and lives are fruits of the gospel. They are evidences of the Spirit’s work.

Dear friends, we are fellow heirs with Christ. That is a spectacularly amazing reality. It wouldn’t matter if we ended the year without a single material possession, without any real prospects of prosperity, without any hope of keeping up with the Joneses, every believer is still rich in the only way that matters. The newly baptized infant benefits from the inheritance in the same way as the mature believer. When our mortality is fully realised only one possession matters, it is the possession of being possessed, as the Scripture says “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”10 Come what may in 2018, you are still His baptized. Satan cannot take that away from you. He can throw a tantrum or a fit. He can devise a deception or plan an insurgency, and he most certainly will try, but he cannot take by force or trickery what the believer possesses by divine right.


New Year is also a good opportunity to reflect on our callings. We all have vocations. These vocations are gifts from God. We are husbands, wives, parents, children, grandparents, and siblings. We are employers, employees, students, and retirees. We serve in our communities in various capacities. It is a privilege to serve God in these ways. We are living stones in God’s temple.

How will 2017 go down in history? And what about in the bigger picture? Will historians be kind in their descriptions of life in the era in which we now live? What distinguishing descriptives will be used? Will we be described as shallow, spoiled, or erudite? Will we be known as fighters, quitters, or peacemakers? Will we be credited as innovators, or scorned as arrogant? Will the achievements of our age pale in comparison to other eras? And what about the spiritual state of affairs? Statistical analysis will tell one story, anecdotal evidence another.

In just a few hours we will step forward into a new year. (Well, some of us may be lying flat on our beds!) What will The Year of our Lord 2018 hold for us? We don’t know. Possibilities, fears, and excitements all lie before us. But we step forward bathed in Easter’s glow. It is humbling to think that all of our glory perishes like mown grass in the summer sun. But how magnificent to know that in the resurrection we will experience a glory that we can’t even now imagine! Amen.
+ In nomine Jesu +

New Year’s Eve
31 December 2017
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt

1 Hebrews 13:8 2 1 Peter 1:23-25
3 Romans 13:11-12 4 Revelation 1:3
5 See Genesis 5:28 6 See Genesis 7:6
7 See Exodus 7:7 8 See 2 Peer 3:8
9 1 Peter 1:3-4 10 1 Corinthians 13:12