NEW YEAR MESSAGE

by:Ven Dr Felix Erondu

The New Year is a season of joy and celebrations.  It is a time to give and receive gifts.    As human beings we like it when it is new, be it New Year, new car, new house, new dress,  new marriage, new baby,  new class at school or new friendship.  During my childhood days I always looked up to the New Year with great expectations because every last week of the year our father would buy one or two new gramophone record.  The new record always had fresh aromatic smell that fills the whole parlor plus a new song added to our family album.  (Even today if you buy your first car fresh from the factory, it smells so good that you can cherish the memory years after).  It was a time when our Papa bought a new dress for all his children, popularly called Christmas dress.  You had to value your Christmas dress and wear it occasionally until another Christmas you get another one.  At that time second hand clothing was not available and cloths were rarer and very expensive.  Another reason that the end of year and the New Year season was celebrated in my childhood days was the school calendar.  In Nigeria then, schools began first term in January each year and the academic year ended in December.  On the last day of the school year around the middle of December, the whole Community will gather at the Primary School Hall for the annual ritual.  Everybody in the Community will be there without exception, for the promotion exam results.  After the opening prayers, the Headmaster would open the School Result Register and begin to call results class by class.  He would call the first, second and third positions and then all who passed to a new class.  There would be jubilation, rejoicing and celebration for all the successful candidates and their families.  But those who failed would weep and cry.  Even in the same family some will be rejoicing while some will be crying.  And this is how it will be on the last day according to Bible.  During the Christmas holidays the children who did well at school would go visiting relatives to show their results and receive gifts.  The Christmas- New Year period in Nigeria is time of celebration in families.  It is a time of thanksgiving for the goodness of God to us.  It happens to be the time of harvest of major crops from the farms such as yams and cassava.  For the Nigerian Christians the season begins with Harvest Thanksgiving Service, then Christmas and then New Year.

The period between the Christmas and the New Year is the most exciting period of each year.  I remember my days as a child growing up in the village, how my uncles and their families used to return to the village from the city of Aba during the Christmas weekend.  Others returned from other cities of Nigeria especially from Lagos.  Then very early on Christmas morning we would go to the bush and cut palm fronds and Christmas flowers and bring home to decorate our houses.  At that time very few people, serious Christians would attend Christmas service.  The rest of us will go to the village square to celebrate with masquerades and traditional dances.  We did not understand the reason for the season. From that day on there will be outings for various traditional dancers, masquerades and cultural groups.  People visited with their relations some of whom they never met since the beginning of the year, usually with gifts.  There was excitement everywhere, even the air smelt differently because of the Christmas flowers that adorn the bushes around the villages.  On the 31st of December, the last day of the year the atmosphere will be so changed that you can feel the transition into the New Year.  The dinner that evening is special.  Every food cooked must be consumed and all pots washed clean. Any remainder has to be trashed because nobody was expected to eat a stale food in the New Year.  It was like the pass-over meal- (Ex 12:10). Then at 10 PM the whole community would go to the central Church, the Anglican Church, and worship till dawn of the New Year by 12 AM.  As everybody was going to the Church they would gather the Christmas decorations and some useless stuff, take to the school compound in the church premises.  The whole stuff would be set ablaze before the church service began. As the smoke of the burning goes up people would be shouting, “Let the year go empty handed”, meaning there should be no more deaths.  But unfortunately some people still die even in the last minute of the old year.  I noticed that some people who never went to church, including native doctors and idol worshippers took part in this cross-over night service. Immediately it was 12AM the priest will end the service and shout happy New Year.  People will shout back and greet one another, and go outside the church and begin to celebrate by shooting guns and fire -works.  Some people make New Year Resolutions at the beginning of each year.  But I found out that neither the excitement of the New Year nor the resolutions can change people.  It is only Christ that can change people.  When we receive Jesus into our lives He gives us power to become children of God and our new life begins: John 1:12.

God of New Beginning:   God is the God of new beginning.  He is ever ready to do something new in your life, your family, your business and your relationships.  Not only is He about to do a new thing for you, what He will do will be greater and better than what He has done for you in the past, for He said that the glory of later shall be more than that of the former-Haggai 2:1.   He will do what is marvelous, excellent and wonderful, because He is the God of increase and perfection.

YOUR Month OF NEW BEGINNING: January 2015 is your month of new beginning.  God is interested in the first month and the New Year as a starting point of His visitation.  He told the children of Israel, “This month shall be the unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you” Ex 12:2.  In Joel 2:23, God promised to give His children the former rain and the later rain (blessings) in the first month.  He has said that He will make a way in your wilderness and create rivers in your desert (Isaiah 43:19), but you must forget the past, let go and let God.

First Thing First: To become a partaker of God’s blessings in the New Year, you must accept God’s New Year Gift- A New Birth.  This is the greatest new thing you can have.  We are at the end times and two people will be sitting in one pew in the church, one will be taken and the other left.  Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and all things will become new for you.  And be ready for Jesus will come back sooner than you expect.  2 Cor. 5:17, “Therefore if man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away: behold all things are become new”

Good News of the New Year: John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.