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“HAPPY NEW YEAR”
I am sitting at my desk here on New Year’s Day 2017, looking out of the window at a very grey and rainy British day. Not exactly a good start - but why do we make such a fuss about a New Year? One minute after midnight on January 1st is really no different to one minute before midnight on December 31st yet somehow we look at the New Year as a totally separate time to the year that has gone before. Sometimes that is because the year just ended has been difficult and we welcome a new start. Like Queen Elizabeth in 1992, I will look back on 2016 as an “annus horribilis” and I personally know other people who regard it in the same way too.
We all have difficulties in life every day, but then there comes a moment when something truly terrible happens and things will never be the same again. Members of the Forum know that my wife died in September of lung cancer even though we had all prayed and believed for a miracle and a number of people have asked me “WHY?” - “Why her - and why did she die so young?” The straightforward answer is that we are living on a fallen planet where ultimately sickness and death come to all of us somewhere along the line. Of course that answer is not much comfort when it happens to you. Hence my “annus horribilis.”
What I do draw comfort from is that in AD29/30 Jesus had His own “annus horribilis” - and He knew in advance what was coming to Him. In the garden of Gethsemane everything in Him recoiled at the prospect of the unspeakable death that was before Him. However, we have a glimpse of God’s grace to Him in that situation - even though there was no way out of it - when He faced it and submitted to it, it says in Luke’s gospel, that: “an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him” (22:11). I can honestly say that in the midst of all that happened last summer I and my family had the comfort and grace of God strengthening us many times. Jesus went through death in order to conquer it, overcoming the world, sin, death and hell - for us and that is our ultimate comfort and hope.
The book of Hebrews gives further comfort to us when we contemplate how and why Jesus suffered the worst things that this fallen world could throw at anyone - especially someone who was totally innocent of any sin or failure. It says of Jesus that: “For the joy that was set before Him (He) endured the cross” (12:12). What was the joy that He could see beyond the cross? The joy of victory? The joy of resurrection, the joy of returning to heaven forevermore? Yes no doubt, but was there something else? Hebrews again gives us an insight: “It was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (2:10). He knew why He was suffering – and He did it joyfully in order to bring many people from all nations and all generations to GLORY!
The one thing that has sustained me personally - even though I do not know the answer to the question “Why?” is that my wife is now in GLORY and whatever this new year brings and the years to come – because Jesus overcame this world – for us as believers, GLORY is our destination.
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