FEATURE

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

--Hebrews 11:1–3 (ESV)

The Earth completes its orbit around the Sun in the time it takes our planet to rotate roughly 365.25 times on its axis. At what point along this orbit do we flip the calendar from one year to the next? The decision is ultimately an arbitrary one. God gave us the elements of the solar year in His divine act of creation. The circumstances about what constitutes a secular calendar year have been left to us.

When we approach a new year, we inevitably reflect on the one that has past. Such reflection is axiomatic of our human nature. God is eternal and exists apart from time. We are mortal and finite and our lives are therefore bound up in time. Each of us has been given a timeline of mortal life with a discrete beginning and an eternally decreed end known only to the Lord. We know this, and so we spend time pondering how we spent our time.

Our finite nature is experienced as both blessing and curse. It is blessing when it we understand that time brings with it new opportunities and healing. The experience of the new, of healing, point us toward an understanding what the Scripture calls faith.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

--Hebrews 11:1 (ESV)

Let's consider an example. When you cut your finger slicing tomatoes for supper, the pain is acute and the dripping blood is shocking and scary. But when the bleeding stops and the pain eases, you know that healing has begun, and you have hope for something you have yet to experience—full and complete healing from that injury. You have that hope because it's rooted and grounded in the faith we all have in the human body's capacity for self-healing and repair. That hope comes from the Lord who is the creator of the human body.

Our finite nature is experienced as a curse when we realize the opportunity costs of living as finite creatures with limited allocations of time in a fallen world. Adam's sin produced cosmic consequences. The result? Mistaken decisions perpetrate mini-fatalities of innumerable good paths not taken. Avenues of possible adventure are blocked by dint of sheer laziness and sinful sloth. Some injuries, we discover, do not heal with time, and many pains grow worse as our mortal frames experience the depravity of illness, disease, and decay. And if that wasn't enough, some saints are born into bodies beset with lifelong disabilities. All of these things remind us that the creation itself is fallen and needs complete renewal.

One of the prayers of confession we sometimes say together in worship goes like this:

Almighty and most merciful Father, you hate nothing you have made, nor desire the death of a sinner—look down with mercy upon me, and grant that I may turn from my wickedness and live. Forgive the days and years which I have passed in folly, idleness, and sin. Fill me with such sorrow for the time misspent, that I may amend my life according to your Holy Word; strengthen me against habitual idleness, and enable me to direct my thoughts to the performance of every duty; that while I live I may serve you in the state to which you shall call me, and at last by a holy and happy death be delivered from the struggles and sorrows of this life, and obtain eternal happiness by your mercy, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

--Samuel Johnson

As we time-bound creatures begin a New Year, I want to draw your attention to the timeless God who gave his only Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from our sin, but also to redeem us and this fallen world from its current depravity. Because he has granted us eternal life in his Son, we have the blessed hope that even our wasted time and our mortal bodies will be redeemed. If you are in Christ, the perishable will become imperishable, and the mortal time bound sinner will put on the immortality of the saints in light. Let the knowledge of this grace give you peace, joy, and hope in this New Year.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

--2 Corinthians 4:16–18 (ESV)

Rev. Christopher D. Drew is the pastor of Faith Presbyterian Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.