Something More Than Time

It’s just a few hours away from the start of a new year, 2012 to be precise.  On an evening like this there’s always a bit of excitement in the air.  Times Square is beginning to fill up with those who seek the excitement of the crowd. Others are getting together with friends and family members for more intimate dinners celebrations. Some of us will be in churches, welcoming the new year with prayer and thanks to God.  Unfortunately, some will be alone.  But wherever we may be, when the clock strikes twelve it will feel as if we have reached another mile marker within our lives, as well as within the history of our world. 

For some people the turning of the new year will mean leaving regret behind and making new resolutions. For others, it is an opportunity to believe and hope for better times. Still for some, it may simply signify just another tick of the clock, one more cycle in the earth’s rotation around the sun.  But, is there anything deeply significant about the turning of another year?  After all, in the end it’s really  just one more sunset and sunrise. Is it not?

The writer of Ecclesiastes sensed that there was something a bit frustrating about the marking of time. He found it frustrating that life appears to be so circular, one season following another and then repeating the pattern again and again. One year is followed by just another year which is then followed by another, and so forth.  Yet, it was the movement of time that actually pointed him to something beyond time.

In the midst of his frustration with time, he wrote: “He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men….” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 – NIV)  That is, the marking of time—even the marking of a new year—is an opportunity to see the hand of God at work within time.  And, it is an opportunity to be honest regarding our longing for something that is beyond time.  Thus, the stepping into a new year become for us a moment to acknowledge that God has created us for something more than that which we can experience here in this life. He has created us for that which is beyond time, namely, his eternal self.    

Tonight we will welcome in another year. We will mark the passage of time.  As we do, let’s give thanks for the fact that God at work in our lives within time.  But, let’s also look forward to the eternity God has planned for us beyond time, realizing that our end goal is an eternity spent with Him.

Happy New Year! 

Pastor Tim Harris