Most societies around the world attach at least some significance to the changing of the calendar from one year to the next. Here in the U.S. we celebrate the changing of the calendar by watching football, putting on feasts, throwing parties, and making resolutions to improve ourselves in some way. As we prepare to change our calendars, perhaps it would be instructive to consider how God started the Jewish ecclesiastical calendar in the Old Testament. Surely God had reasons and goals for what He did.
When God had completed nine of the ten plagues on Egypt, the Pharaoh’s heart was still hardened toward his Israelite slaves and their God. Exodus 12:1-3 records how God instituted the Jewish calendar, “Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ‘This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.’ Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household.’” (NASU) It seems to me that God must have had good reason for choosing this time to be the start of the new year. I am not arguing for us to use the Jewish ecclesiastical calendar but it does seem to me that surely there are some principles to learn here. This particular month was known to the enslaved Israelites as “Abib” which means sprouting, ear of grain, or green fruit. The name was changed after the Babylonian Captivity to “Nisan” which means flowery or new. In any case this month occurs in the spring time and roughly corresponds to March and April. Perhaps God simply chose to birth the new calendar year as the earth was giving birth to new plant growth.
It seems to me that some other truth would be at the center of this decision. A central truth of the Bible is that anyone who has not committed his life to Christ is in bondage to sin as certainly as the Israelites were in bondage to the Egyptians. Both were totally helpless, unable to do anything to get out of this captivity; but God sent help. The tenth plague would be death but God provided a way of redemption. All the Israelites had to do was to follow God’s explicit, easy to understand directions and they would escape the penalty of death. All that anyone today has to do to escape the penalty of eternal death is to follow God’s explicit, easy to understand directions. This is the central truth for all time, in all places, for all people. I think it no coincidence that as decreed in Exodus 12:1-3 hundreds of thousands of passover lambs as well as The Passover Lamb would be sacrificed in this very month, thus making it a most logical choice to be the first month of the year.
2 Corinthians 5:17 adds insight, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (NASU) Without the way of redemption provided by Christ our Passover, we could never enter into this new, everlasting life as a new creation. As your calendar changes from 2016 to 2017 I pray that it will remind you not of the birth of a new year but of the birth of a freely offered new and everlasting life. I suggest that we spend some time reflecting on God’s great mercy offered only through Jesus.
