Anyone who follows this blog know that it is unlikely I am three months early with anything. Not that I am habitually late with this blog, or anything. Habitually is a harsh word, in my opinion. I prefer "tendency," as in I have a tendency to veer off the self-prescribed two week period between blogs.
I refer not to New Year's Day, January 1, 2012, but the New Year 5772 on the Jewish calendar which fell on Thursday, September 29 on the "regular" calendar, the 1st of Tishri on the Jewish one. Also known as Rosh Hashana, the "head of the year," the differences go beyond the date. Rosh Hashana marks not only the beginning of the calendar year, but the beginning of the 10 days of repentance ending with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is a time of celebration, of acknowledging God's kingship over one's life, but it is also a time of introspection and confession.
Typically, Americans spend New Year's Eve at parties or sitting up watching the ball drop in Times Square on television. The more spiritual segment of society might pass the night at a watch service, in prayer for the people partying their lives away. On New Year's Day in the South, at least, greens and black eyed peas (the food, not the band) are customary in many homes. Some people write a list of resolutions.
My personal, fairly ironclad New Year's tradition involves going to sleep at the normal hour on December 31 and waking up January 1. The past few years, I enjoyed a mimosa brunch with some of the folks at Lillington Presbyterian Church in North Carolina followed by a devotional. This year, I will probably have to pass, having moved back to Florida. More mimosas for everyone else!
I had the pleasure of attending an Ev Rosh Hashanah service last week. There were readings in Hebrew and English, Israeli-flavored worship dancing, singing, prayer, and the blowing of the shofar, or ram's horn. There is something about that lone, ancient sound that goes straight to the heart.
After the service, we ate the traditional challah bread with...bleh....grape juice. Did I mention this was a messianic synagogue's service? Perhaps that is the reason God's original fruit of the vine (wine!) was neglected. At any rate, prayers were said in thanksgiving for grain and vine, as well as for fruit. Apples with honey were included. I doubt anyone minded that the customary fish or ram's head was overlooked.
The following day, there was to be a service at a local river park, which I did not attend. Stones would be gathered representing a particular sin in one's life to be cast into the water, symbolic of God's promise in Micah 7:19 to cast our sins into the "sea of forgetfulness."
So with all this going on, I have been thinking about forgiveness, and the idea that we are fairly clueless about the scope and depth of God's forgiveness, perhaps because we have such trouble forgiving others and ourselves. Do we really believe, as the story goes, that when we have asked for God's forgiveness and then...still feeling guilty... ask again, he says, "What are you talking about?" Do we really believe that Jesus died not only to erase the eternal power of the sin nature we inherited at birth but also each and every sin that each and every person had ever and would ever commit? Do we really believe that forgiveness is not only available but freely given to all who ask for it? Could it possibly be that simple? That Jesus, knowing we were unable to live righteously, offered himself as a sacrifice for our collective sin/sins, once for all, and that it isn't so much our asking God to forgive us, but our own acceptance of what he has already done?
We all have regrets, things we should not have said or done or thought. Things we wanted to do enough to carry them out, fully realizing that they were wrong and potentially hurtful to others. Things that were contrary to God's Law, maybe even man's. While I can think of a multitude of things I have done that were wrong, I can think of a few things I was guilty of that have never been completely forgiven by those I hurt. Occasionally, past mistakes still haunt through the helpful "reminders" of others who can't, or won't, let go. It is a good reminder to me, when this happens, to check my own heart: Have I forgiven him, her? Is there anything between this person and me? We need to forgive if only because we need it ourselves so very often.
Maybe you, like me, have not been forgiven by someone you wronged, or who believes that you wronged them. That is not God's heart. God is love, and love "keeps no record of being wronged," according to 1 Corinthians 13 (New Living Translation). The blood of Jesus covers completely. The work of the Cross paid the price for whatever I've done or will do. Whatever you have done. Whatever, I would remind you gently, of whatever will be done to you as well.
May each of us, in the New Year of 5772 (or the New Year of 2012 in a few months) let the truth of God's forgiveness become more alive in our hearts. May we offer forgiveness more freely to those around us, conscious of the fact that we each have need of God's forgiveness on a daily basis. And may we stop beating ourselves up for past stupidity!
And stop allowing others to make us continue to pay for things even God has forgotten.
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