Another Blank Page

There’s something special about the turn of a new year. I enjoy watching it play out on social media. I love to see people acknowledge the things they’ve survived and turn with a hopeful eye to the new year. It’s a white page waiting for the first strokes of paint to color it beautiful, an empty journal waiting for the first words of prose to fill it, a blank staff ready for the opening notes of a new melody. December 31st feels like standing on a precipice, waiting to take the first step into something exciting and new.

And then sometimes the clock strikes 12, and you get slapped in the face with horrible strep throat and the flu, a leak in the bathtub dripping down to the basement, and a broken fridge with spoiling food. The hope and positivity passed around this New Year’s Day missed me. Instead, I was given a sore throat, fatigue, high fever, chills, and body aches and spent my day, and the majority of my week curled up on the couch, wondering if I could call this a false start and try again later.

It’s tempting to see the start of a new year as the place to pin hopes and dreams for the next 12 months, to allow the excitement of perceived newness to set the tone for resolutions and change to come. Sometimes it’s practical. That first day back in the gym can set off a chain reaction for the entire year that makes your life better. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes your start is rocky, your appliances give up, and you can’t contaminate the people at your gym with the plague. These setbacks might take away the newness of the new year, but they don’t take away the opportunities afforded.

It makes me think of Christ and how we are made new in him. The initial new creation, the beautiful moment that occurred when he came and atoned for our sins. He covered them all. There was no need for another sacrifice, no waiting for a calendar year and the established Day of Atonement with a mediating priest to enter the presence of God on his people’s behalf. Jesus wiped the slate clean in one go, giving us access to God because he is now our mediator.

That clean slate can be picked up at any moment. It’s not dependent on a yearly calendar, the feeling of newness, or a cultural movement for self-improvement. Christ’s sacrifice gives equal opportunity for everyone to be a new person the moment they acknowledge their sin and need for him. No glittery ball drop, no fanfare, and not even a church is needed, just a heart that knows its need for forgiveness and trusts in the One offering it.

And those of us who already know eternal forgiveness, but who are currently curled up on a couch contemplating giving up on 2020 because it’s obviously a bust, there’s a fresh start waiting there as well. The promise that the person I am today, forgiven yet flawed, isn’t stuck in the same habits as last year, yesterday, or even 20 minutes ago. God’s word promises that I can take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:15), that I can continually renew my mind (Ephesians 4:23), and in the transforming know his good and perfect will (Romans 12:2). That’s the fresh start I need every single day. I need a chance to start over again and again, a clean slate to work with. Because my life isn’t changed by the countdown of a clock, it’s changed moment by moment by Christ in me.