The Transcendence of Christmas vs the Imminence of New Years

The juxtaposition of two of the world's most celebrated holidays. By Natasha Bredle, contributing writer and editor.

The Surely As the Sun team sincerely hopes everyone reading this has had their spirits momentarily, if not lastingly, rejuvenated and illuminated (hey, that rhymes) by the light of Christ during our celebration of His birth. Or, in other words, we hope you’ve all had a very merry Christmas—and in just a few hours, a happy New Year as well. It feels a little bit crazy, to say in the least, that less than a week after we celebrate the beginning of something glorious and new, we turn all our excitement and anticipation to a closing, a sort of curtain drawing, with New Years. Twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three-hundred-sixty-five days, however else you want to frame it, all add up to the conclusion of one planetary journey around the sun, and the commencing of yet another.

Christmas and New Years, as two often correlated holidays, are surprisingly juxtaposed with one another. Christmas, on one hand, largely deals with the transcendent. Recent trends in our increasingly secularizing world have aimed to suppress the divinity of this holiday by making it largely commercial. (Not to hate on Santa, but the image of a big old man in a red suit delivering toys and munching on sugar cookies doesn’t exactly shout ‘transcendent.’) This piece will dive into the true root of Christmas which Christians commemorate every December 25th: the miraculous human birth of Jesus Christ, which would, from that point onward, change everything.
 
Jesus was not of the world (Isaiah 55:9) but came into it (John 3:17) because He wanted to be with us. He wanted to be close to us, surrounding us, reaching us, working through us, and yes, most importantly, saving us. He wanted us to become one with God our Creator again. How so? Well, Jesus showed us while He lived as a human on the earth. His words and works are recorded in the gospels. But one way of paraphrasing it is to say that Jesus beckoned and continues to beckon us to live lives that transcend this world. 
 
We all know that nothing lasts. The book of Ecclesiastes, which dotes on this a lot, doesn’t use the peppiest tone when pondering life’s latter boundaries, which is why, save for a few verses, it’s not many people’s go-to for inspiration. Nevertheless, there’s a reason why Ecclesiastes is included among the Bible’s wisdom literature. Solomon’s musings remain relevant to us today. Even our modern world, with all its technological advances, can’t combat the passage of time. Food expires. News stories become outdated. Cars break down. Conversations get forgotten. Corporations go out of business. Movements fade away. People die. 
 
Some things in this world may appear eternal to us. Good things, like prosperity, abundance, and growth, can have their stretches of false invincibility. It’s easy enough to see that such worldly contentment does not, in fact, last forever when we lose or are stripped of our wealth, wellness, or relationships. On the other hand, bad things like injustice, hatred, violence, and affliction can appear more and more permanent as we witness occurrences of them in our world every day. Yet we learn from the book of Revelation that there will too come a time when Jesus will return to the earth to put an end to these once and for all.
 
Our culture doesn’t like thinking about mortality. This can be seen in the outpouring of assets into the monolithic cosmetics industry, or in trends of increasing retirement age, or in the general taboo we’ve placed around the finite fact of our existences. People tend to avoid thinking about death until, frankly, they have to. We even mask our discomfort around this topic with extravagant celebrations on New Year’s Eve, ritually shrugging the old year’s dust off our shoulders and thrusting ourselves headfirst into the new, even if all the hope and excitement we don is a facade concealing our internal anxiety.
 
God knows the thought of death is scary. That’s why He gave us a cornerstone to stand upon when everything and everyone we know and love on this earth gets lost, changes, or fades away. The faith, hope, and love we put in Jesus Christ remains (1 Corinthians 13:13.) That we can be sure of. 
 
What Jesus came to earth for on Christmas was not some imminent task that lasted only the span of His human life, a handful of measurable years. It was transcendent. Jesus’ arrival in our world has echoed through human history for thousands of years, and will continue to reverberate until the end of time. 
 
Christmas is transcendent. New Years is imminent. While our lives may fluctuate from year to year—reach highs and lows, waver from stable to uncertain—Jesus’ presence in our hearts will never age. The truth of His love will never change.
 
Throughout 2023, we each may foster prayers for beginnings. Or we may pray for certain things to end. We all may have to face beginnings and endings that we don’t want to face. But along this passage of time we call life, we must remember that ultimately, God is who comes before us and who goes after (Revelation 22:13.) God is in control of the universe. He will make everything right, in His perfect timing. It should be our eternal comfort to know that He loves us and cares deeply for us, and will remain unchanging throughout all the years of our lives.