Vicar Christopher Gillespie
Immanuel Lutheran Church of Frankentrost
Saginaw, Michigan
New Years’ Eve (December 31, 2007)
Text: Isaiah 30:(1-14)15-17; Romans 8:31b-39; Luke 12:35-40

12-31-2007 audio

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for our meditation this evening is from Isaiah chapter 30: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, as the darkness of evening approaches and the year that has past comes to a close, grant us trust in Your promises and bless our hearts and minds to rest patiently in the confidence of Your providence for us and for all people in the year to come. Amen.

It is time for us this time of year to make certain commitments of change - in lifestyle or habit. We call these things New Year’s resolutions. We commit to do things like make changes to our appearance, to our physical fitness, to kick the habit of alcohol or tobacco use, to be more focused in our classroom, or to make dramatic changes to our diet.

Even our own US government on their website lists a multitude of New Years’ resolutions that you might tackle. For example: payoff debt, save money, get a better job, get a better education, reduce stress, take a trip, or volunteer to help others. In all these many and various resolutions, the US government is more than willing to provide for you means to accomplish them in the form of tax breaks and social services.

I don’t know about you but I’ve never quite gotten a handle on any of these resolutions. When I’ve resolved to lose weight or exercise more often by my own power of strength, I seems I succumb to gluttony. I resolve to pay off debt and to save more, and instead by greed takes over and I spend in excess. I’ve resolved to treat others with respect and goodness, and instead it seems I fall into the same old traps of hurting their feelings and treating them like trash.

As you come to the end of this year consider the things that you have a promised to do and the things that you actually have done. No doubt as you consider through those ideas in your mind I expect you found discrepancies. The majority of the time you haven’t kept the resolutions and the promises that you’ve made yourself to others. What happens to make these New Year’s resolutions so faulty? Why do we fail in them? Why can’t we keep them?

God’s Word speaks to us about our will and ability to improve ourselves. It tells us that we are sinful creatures. We are creatures who don’t keep our promises, who don’t act in concord and in harmony with those around us, who don’t treat our bodies as temples of the Lord. We are creatures in rebellion to the Creator.

Isaiah speaks about the character of man in his prophecy of Chapter 30 immediately before the text just read. The Lord instructs the prophet Isaiah to go before the people and write on a tablet exactly who the people are. He commands Isaiah to write that they are a rebellious and lying children — children who do not fear the law of the Lord. Rebellious children are children who ignore their parents, ignore their father, ignore their king. These children say they their own knowledge, will, power, and ability is far superior to the to that of the Lord.

Our New Years’ resolutions fail because we resolve to do things by our own power, by our own ability, and by our own will. Rather we should trust in the hand of God to provide not just a gifts of this earth but by his providential hand provide guidance, will and ability to do his bidding. The proper New Year’s resolution is the resolution to submit to God — to allow God’s will be done in your life, to pray thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. This is the resolution that says “May it be done to me according to your Word” as Mary sung in the Magnificat.

The rebellious child yet dwells within each of us. It pleads to the prophet: “do not do not prophesy to us right things but speak instead of things that are smoothed out, easy to handle, simple to understand. Give us our ideas of what it means to be a Christian, and allow us to live our lives in a way that we see fit, to behave as as we desire.”

Our Lord won’t allow such false resolutions to stand. Lord says “no” to your sinful resolutions for the New Year. He sends prophets to proclaim His law in truth.

His prophet Isaiah tells us that that we do not rest in his confidence but instead that we would try to take the reins and run from the evil one by our own ability. The Lord tells us that the evil one will pursue us with yet swifter forces that the evil one has greater strength than our own and that by our own power and ability we will be overcome by sin, by Satan, and by death.

Our reading ends with this warning appropriate for the end of the year but it doesn’t give the promise of grace from our Lord which follows an Isaiah chapter 30. This is a promise suitable for tomorrow, the New Year. The Lord waits and is patient so that he might be gracious to you. He will have mercy upon you. The Lord will bless you as the one who waits for him. He has promised us to dwell in Zion and Jerusalem. He promised us release from weeping. He will answer us. The Lord will give us bread even in adversity and water even when we are afflicted. He will preserve his church — giving us teachers to keep a steadfast in his Word, both Law and Gospel. He will provide for us teachers who will guide us back to the path of righteousness from the iniquity that is the path of sin.

Our Lord, by His almighty power working in us, destroys idolatry, destroys wickedness, and destroys the effect of our sinful will upon us. He says to our sinful nature “come out of them!” By his Holy Spirit working through Word and Sacrament, He sanctifies our lives, preserving us in the true faith through forgiveness.

Our Lord threatens punishment to the sinner but also promises forgiveness to those who wait upon him. His promise is rain for our seeds. His promise is increase of bread of the earth. His promise is fast and plentiful rivers and streams of water. The Lord has promised that on the last day we will dwell securely in Heaven where our Lord himself sits at our feet and washes them, takes our wounds and binds them, and in heals all our diseases

We have a taste of his feast to come, of this healing, of his new life, of this new year — in the Sacrament of the altar where is very body and blood cleanses us of all our false attempts to do what he has promised to do — to give us what he has promised to give us.

By our own power we can’t make the resolution to become more like Him. But by God’s power and presence in very body and blood He makes it so. He purifies our souls. He is present and works in us to. In Him, we are sanctified to be his manservant and his maidservant to do His bidding here on this earth.

In his body and blood, we see the very promise first made manifest in the manger to save us from our flesh — to do what our resolutions made each New Year cannot do my our own will and strength. Instead the hand of God provides for us salvation, true holiness and purity of the flesh so that we might live with him in the kingdom to come. By God’s providing hands in his very Son are we able to live in righteousness and purity of body and soul.

Despite this year that has passed being wrought with disappointment and sorrow, may we see in the cross of Christ, in Christ’s death and resurrection, that by suffering and by affliction our hearts and minds are conformed to see the mercy of God, the very love of God, which is the death and resurrection of his son for us. Despite the years passing, our lives fading, and the darkness approaching, let us see in the darkness of the death of His son, God’s divine reversal of that in darkness and time, where he transformed those things into new light, new creation, and everlasting life — a life that never ends.

St. Paul so eloquently spoke of this in our epistle when he says: “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? … For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31b-39)

God has resolved to keep you in his love. His resolution is that you receive him and His Son — in the manger and given and shed for you for your forgiveness of sins, so that nothing is separate to from the love of God. So that you may be conquerors in him who has saved you. We are the blessed who are awake, who know that the master comes, who are prepared. We are the ones who are served by him as he invites us to recline at his table. We are the ones made ready for heaven; for the feast to come.

“Do not be afraid little flock! For your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32) Rather than resolve this year to fix all the problems in your life, instead bow before the cross of our Lord, trusting in his promises to preserve you and asking that His will be done for you and for your family and for your world. In prayer, recount his mercies in your life, the blessings that he has bestowed upon you in the year past, and in this coming year to provide for you as he has promised.

May his Word and may His sacraments do to you as they have promised — forgive you, sanctify you, and purify you in the way of our Lord. May you pray “May it be not by my own power but by your work, O Lord.” May you rest passive in the confidence and assurance of the promises of our Lord — that he would preserve you and he would grant to you release and pardon from your sins. All this not by your own New Years’ resolution, but His will working in you.