We know the new calendar does not actually alter the
situation. A calendar is simply twelve pieces of paper stapled together that
mark the days and the months. Right now, at the beginning of 2021, covid is still
here and the government still is inefficient, self-serving and hyper-partisan.
Added to those distressing truths is the fact that most jobs have not yet
recovered, and many personal difficulties and crises still remain.
Nevertheless, it is true that there is something about
casting the old year out that is oddly cathartic. We did this in our home on
New Year’s Eve—we cast off the old year. Actually, it is more accurate to say,
we “blew it up.” This year my family and I observed a New Year’s Eve custom that
we have not done since the days we lived in Venezuela.
Blowing Up the Old Man
On the first New Year’s Eve that my family and I lived in that country of South America, we were introduced to a New Year’s custom called “blowing up the old man.”
In this tradition, a scarecrow-like person is made
with old clothes and stuffing like the scarecrow you would put in your corn
field. However, it is more than straw that is in the stuffing.
Hidden among the sticks and straw, within the body of the
straw man, firecrackers and even larger explosives were placed in various
locations. Some of these explosives were even “morteros.” The word means
‘mortars,’ and they are dangerously powerful.
After warnings about moving the cars parked on the street,
the “old man” was placed seated in an old chair in the middle of the street on
our block. Then, at the stroke of midnight of the New Year, the “old man” was
set on fire by a brave (or perhaps foolish) young neighbor kid who thought that
he could run pretty fast.
Soon after the old man was lit, his straw and paper body was
ripped apart by the explosives inside. Straw body parts and pieces of the
morteros were sent flying in every direction. Windows of the nearby houses
rattled, car alarms in the vicinity began to go off, and those onlookers who
had not retreated far enough away from the old man began to worry about bodily
harm. All ability to hear was lost for the next half an hour or more.
This is blowing up the old man. It is far more sensational
and eventful than watching a crystal ball slowly and agonizingly descend a pole
in Time Square. Blowing up the old man ushers in the New Year with true
enthusiasm.
The tradition of blowing up the old man has a meaning that
goes beyond simply marking the hour and minute of the change of the year. It
also represents blowing up the old year into obliteration. The idea is that the
old year is gone forever, and now the new one may start fresh. It is usually
just done in fun (if you consider temporary deafness and the danger of true
bodily harm “fun”), but the tradition is not completely devoid of meaning.
In that first year
after arriving in Venezuela, one of our neighbor’s daughters went around to the
homes on our street to gather old articles of clothing from each family in
order to make a “community” old man that was to be blown up in our street on
the New Year.
The girl then prepared a speech; using as a basis for her
talk the articles of old clothing that she had collected from the various
families on our street. For each of these, she related a problem that the
family had experienced during the year to the piece of clothing that they had
contributed.
These were the problems, she said, that the families wanted
to blow up.
I do not remember all examples, but one of our neighbors who
had contributed a pair old of shoes, also had had many difficulties with his
car in that previous year. The girl who gave the speech applied the troublesome
car and the old shoes to their “transportation problems” that would be done
away with in the New Year.
Another one of our neighbors who had suffered a broken arm
had contributed an old shirt. That connection between the shirt and putting the
broken arm in the past was almost too easy to make.
I had given an old pair of pants. Since we had only been a
short time in that town, the neighbor girl said that we wished to be rid of our
instability of moving here and there, and to settle down comfortably in our
chairs in our new home. I nodded in hearty agreement.
The old man was then put on fire, and almost magically,
every problem of every family on our street was obliterated in a great display
of fire and explosion. The event was fun and well received, and best of all, no
one was injured.
It is not all Light-Hearted
It may be a fun event, but if someone has passed through a
particularly difficult year, the blowing up of the old man takes on some
additional significance. It is not always so easy to make light of problems with a fun-filled community event, and despite the lightheartedness of the tradition,
we know that problems are not so easily solved.
This year nearly every person in America has suffered from
the pandemic in some way. Surely some have suffered more than others, but all
may truly wish that they could simply blow up this past year and not again be
bothered with it.
We would like that it could be so easy, but it does not help
to give simplistic answers. Of course, the pandemic is only one of the troubles
that many have had to endure this year. There have been health concerns, loss of
employment, finances…the list continues. Problems sometimes seem to come at
every turn.
Our Problem with Problems
In viewing our problems, perspective becomes all important.
At times, a problem is given a larger than deserved significance because it is keeping
us from our immediate goal. If our goal is simply to pay the monthly bills,
then a breakdown with our car can be more than problematic. We are faced with a
situation that is more significant than simply causing us to puzzle over how to
get to work the next day. If we cannot work, how then to pay the rent? The
circumstances can be devastating.
This car problem tolls like a bell, mourning the death of
the goal to make all of our payments. Our very day-to-day existence comes into
jeopardy.
It is true that from the immediate perspective we must do
something, but it sometimes helps to remember that despite how large the
problem seems at the moment, it also remains true that we are looking at only
the immediate. These are the smaller battles. We must wage them and look for
victory over them, but these are our smaller goals.
Our true objective should be much larger. None of us would
desire to have our lives reduced to living month to month with our victories
rising or falling by how well we have done financially in that month, or
whether or not we had additional and unexpected expenses.
Our larger goal should be for a more fulfilling life.
Looking at the Big Picture
How are we to view our problems from this larger perspective? This is sometimes quite easily done and other times very difficult, but the best advice I have ever encountered was spoken by Jesus Christ:
Do not worry about
your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.
Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?
Jesus then talks about how the heavenly Father provides for the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field.
Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you?
Then Jesus says something that has affected me as much as
anything that has ever been said or written. “But seek first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Matthew
6:25, 29-30, 33 BSB).
Perspective and Power
The difference is in perspective. We must grow beyond the
perspective of those of the world who only seek things of the earth and their
well-being merely in the years that they have here. We must learn to seek the
perspective of the kingdom and the righteousness of God. It is this kingdom of
God’s and his righteousness that is to be the object of our quest—not the luxuries
or security in this life.
When we change our perspective on what is important, we will
then find that there is also a change of power. Our difficulties become
overwhelming when we do not have the power to overcome them. However, with our
new perspective, we come to realize that our difficulties are not really even
ours to solve. We do not have the power to solve the problems that come to us,
but we instead look to Him who takes us under His care.
Many years ago one of our boys, still very small, was
sitting one day down in the valley that lies in front of our house. He had gone
down the hill on his wagon and was trying to pull it back up. But the hill was
steep and the grass rather long, and his little legs and arms were tired.
As I was walking along on top of the hill, I faintly heard
some sobbing coming up from the valley. As I peered over the crest of the hill,
I saw him just sitting there, only a short way up from the bottom, with his
little head resting on his knees.
Seeing the problem, I walked down into the valley, picked
him up and gave him a hug, and placed him in the wagon. Then, with him riding
in the wagon, I pulled him up to the top of the hill. His sobs turned into
laughter as he rode up the same hill against which he earlier had struggled.
It is the job of a father to take the burdens of his son,
and it is not a bothersome responsibility. On the contrary, it gives a father
great joy when he is able to use his strength to bring delight where there was
once grief. I know I was very much pleased when my small son marveled at the
great strength that I possessed.
As Job, of old, said of his Redeemer, “If it is a matter of
power, behold, He is the strong one!” (Job 9:19, NAS).
And the great king David… “For who is God, besides the Lord?
And who is a rock, besides our God? God is my strong fortress.”
Like a father who pulls his son up the worrisome hill, David
says this of his God: “He makes my feet like hinds' feet, and sets me on my
high places” (2 Samuel 22:32-34, NAS).
Not Blowing Up our Problems, but Giving Them to our Father
In a similar way, it does no good to put our problems into a
package and blow them up or to wish them away. There is no real benefit in
blowing up the old man to begin a New Year fresh. But we do have a way that we
can find relief from our problems.
Our Redeemer is strong. The Lord of hosts is His name.
Not God’s Final Vision for Us
As we begin the year 2021, it is the sad reality that the
covid-19 is with us. As of yet, we have no immunity to it. Many are even
fearful of this fact and many more have lost income and health. Many have even
died. In a multitude of ways, the pandemic has caused all of us to alter our
lifestyle drastically.
But we are holding on. We know that the covid pandemic will
pass. Nevertheless, we can also be sure that in the future there will be other
problems. One thing that we should have learned from the present pandemic is
that a tiny, and even microscopic thing can change the course of our entire
lives. At the beginning of last year, the year 2020, no one would have guessed
the great impact this virus was to have on every aspect of our living and even
on world events.
Now, at the dawn of 2021, we hope that all will be better,
although we have no way of knowing this for certain. The popular thinking at
the beginning of a new year is always to put on an optimistic face and look to
the future with fresh determination. This is good, but the attitude must also
be seasoned heavily with reality.
We all wish for a better year, but it does not help us to deny
the existence of problems when they do come. We have seen this with the
pandemic. At first, many denied that the coronavirus was even a danger, saying
that it was a “hoax.” Some perhaps still say that, but I think that the number
of hospitalizations and deaths have shown most that this type of living in
denial was wrong.
It is the same with other problems that have come and that
will come our way. Living in denial will not help. Nor does thinking that we
can blow our problems up like the old straw man at the end of the year.
How to Find Peace
Again speaking of the beginning of last year, the year 2020,
in some sort of a peculiar way our situation then was similar to how Jesus was
preparing his disciples shortly before he was to be crucified. Like us in
January of last year, the disciples had no idea of the tribulations that they
were soon to face.
Jesus told them, “Look, an hour is coming and has already
come when you will be scattered, each to his own home.”
He could have said that to us in January of last year, and
we would have had no idea what he was referring to. But like the disciples soon
after they heard these words from Jesus, for most of the year of 2020 we were
huddled in our own homes, afraid to venture out. The disciples were afraid of
persecution, we were afraid of a virus.
But whatever the case, Jesus also said something to his
disciples that applies to all generations in every age: “In the world you will
have tribulation.”
A pessimistic statement?
You might be saying to yourself, “I don’t need this type of
negative energy at the beginning of the New Year! I want optimism! I want a pep
talk! I want to hear inspirational words!”
But in an unconventional way, this statement about the
certainty of tribulation in the world is one of the most inspirational things
that Jesus has said. It is meant to give us optimism, and will do so if we take it
in full context the sentence. Jesus said it not so that we would have a gloomy
outlook of pessimism. He said it so that we would know how to have peace in our
lives.
This phrase of tribulation in the world is sandwiched in
between two other phrases. The full sentence reads like this:
“I have told you these things so that in Me you may have
peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have
overcome the world.”(John 16:33 BSB)
What We Can Expect from the World
Living in peace and living in optimism depends upon where we
are looking for certainty in life. If we look to the world, you can be sure
that we will have tribulations. Despite all of the vaccines and other temporary
solutions to problems, despite all of the empty promises, in the end,
tribulations and problems are all that the world can offer us. It will never
and can never offer us a lasting peace.
The new “savior” of the world seems to have become
“science.” The world is now looking to “science” to bring us out of the present
pandemic. Vaccines are fine, but even the best vaccine is simply a bandage on
the larger problem. Did we forget that it was “science” that brought us this
pandemic in the first place, and then through rapid international commerce
quickly spread it across the globe? “Science” is not our savior. “Science” will
never bring us peace.
Why would we think that permanent solutions to problems
could come from the very world that gives us the problems in the first place?
Our only hope of attaining true peace is to look beyond any solution that the
world had to offer.
What We Can Expect from Jesus
Jesus says to us “Take courage; I have overcome the world!”
The words that Jesus spoke to the church at Laodicea seem especially relevant to today’s church:
You say, ‘I am
rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you
are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from Me
gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, white garments so that you
may be clothed and your shameful nakedness not exposed, and salve to anoint
your eyes so that you may see. Those I love, I rebuke and discipline. Therefore
be earnest and repent.
Behold, I stand at
the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in
and dine with him, and he with Me. To the one who overcomes, I will grant the
right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with My
Father on His throne.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Revelation 4:17-22 BSB)
The Apostle Paul knew what it was to experience trouble in
this world, as he enumerates them in one of his letters to the Corinthians…“In
troubles, hardships, and calamities; in beatings, imprisonments, and riots; in
labor, sleepless nights, and hunger.”
How did he respond to these problems? As he writes, “In
purity, knowledge, patience, and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere
love; in truthful speech and in the power of God.” (2 Corinthians 6:4-10)
It is because he realized that his strength did not come from external
solutions that he could write, “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show
that this surpassingly great power is from God and not from us. We are hard
pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted,
but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:7-9 BSB)
It is not a vaccine that will bring us peace in these turmoiled
times—no national policy of behavior. It is not science that can offer us
solutions.
Paul further writes, “In all these things we are more than
conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor
life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our
Lord. (Romans 8:37-39 BSB)
The security that we seek will only be found in the love of Christ, and once we find His love, there is no power on earth or in heaven that can separate us from Him.
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