NEW year message from the Right Reverend Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford:
ALONG with birthdays and anniversaries the beginning of another year is something some of us find difficult.
It is an unwelcome reminder that we are one year older; and one year further away from birth must also mean one year closer to death.
New Year's Eve, bah, humbug! But is there another way of thinking about it?
The Christian faith is itself one mighty new beginning for the world. We measure our years from the date of Christ's coming among us. AD – Anno Domini – means 'in the Year of the Lord'.
What we are calculating is the number of years that we human beings have lived with the knowledge that, in Christ, God has come to earth and freed us from those very things – sin and death and decay – which make some of us dread anniversaries in the first place.
So a new year is not one year closer to death, or one year further away from birth, or even one year further away from Christ, but another year in which we live with the eternal life that is our inheritance now.
Of course we are anxious, and sometimes fearful about death, and of course we are worried for the future, especially in a time of recession and uncertainty.
But for Christians there is always hope.
In Christ, God's future breaks into our present. Here is some good news: eternal life doesn't begin when you die, but is present now because of what God has done in Christ.
And the marking of a new year is the marking of another year in which we live within this glorious dispensation, set free from sin and death and rejoicing in hope.
So make a new year's resolution if you must, but don't be gloomy about a new year.
Rejoice!