ALREADY the Preacher of ancient days in Jerusalem’s gate told us, that: “Everything has its appointed time. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted” (Eccl. 3). And now that by God’s forbearing patience another year has run its course, and the Lord has not destroyed us, together with this whole world of unrighteousness, neither stormed it away in His wrath, but still maintained it and still overshadowed it with His compassion, it behooves us and every creature, that was permitted to overhear the call of his God, to pause a moment on the way, and at the close of this year to think back to its beginning and of what from this beginning separates the end.
This year now closing had its appointed time. From the hand of the Eternal it was born, and that same hand of Almightiness presently takes hold of it, to turn it back into its nothingness. This year, too, was born, but this year, too, must die. This year, too, is planted by God, but, after a few moments, is plucked up again by that same God from the flowerbed of the years. And then it is said to be past, but it is not therefore past; for, as a plant that was plucked up, yet left its working and fruit behind, so there still remains of such a year of life the well-nigh incalculable harvest of what God’s faithfulness wrought, and of what our guilt has sinned, therein.
We have lived through this year, we have crept through it, and have struggled through it, but from its first beginning God Almighty has ruled it. Before that year came to us, God the Lord held it in His holy hand. From that hand it came forth, to enter into our life. It came not of itself, but God sent it. And when it began, the Lord knew it and everything this year involved; and of this year, too, when it went forth, He said to His angels: “My counsel shall stand and I will do all My good pleasure”. This year was then still merely a seed, that only just began to germinate, but God knew every branch and every twig, each leaf and every flower, that should bud thereon: every gust of storm-wind which would afflict us therein; and every poisonous insect that would creep up along its stalk. Yea, to this year, too, applied what through Isaiah the prophet (46: 9) the Lord had spoken concerning His divine counsel: “I am a God Who declares the end from the beginning.”
To us such a year is a dead force, which rolls one grain of sand after another towards us every morning at our awaking, or, if you will, a cloud floating over us, from which day by day drop after drop is sprinkled down upon our lifeway; but to God such a year is alive. As one mighty whole it stood sculptured out from the beginning before Him. In His counsel such a year had to fulfill a rôle; according to His holy plan it had a calling, to which it was bound to respond; it was a messenger sent out by Him to this world and its nations and its children of men; sent forth also to your home, and in that home to the personal life of your own heart.
We stood before it blind. We did not know that strange year, which had just announced its arrival, and, with the veil before its face, did not allow us to surmise what it carried in its womb. So our hope of good struggled with the anxious fear of an outpouring of God’s anger. For this is the striking part of it, that with the dying away of a worn-out and the birth of a new year, the wave-beat of eternity sounds through our troubled heart, and those voices of the eternal waters make us, unholy creatures, afraid before the holinesses of our God.
But now we know the year. It finished its course. It grew up and flourished in its branches which, now shorn of leaves and withered, stands again before us as an image of death. And before again another year is released from God’s eternity, our look turns backward therefore for a moment, once more to view that lived-through and withered year in its somber form before the face of God.
Not that God the Lord made it somber, for His faithfulness was there every morning; His mercifulness was that year also mighty upon them that feared Him; and every night and morning His divine compassion was new. The sum-totals of all God’s kindly blessings can not be estimated. Theirs is no number. But sometimes the year was somber, insomuch as we had to live through it; insomuch as the stream of its waters had to flow through our heart; and because every morning and every evening our heart mingled in that clear, deep stream the outpouring of our inward sickness and unholiness. For who, in looking back upon such a year, can be satisfied with himself? Who can say: “This year the plant of my soul has borne a rich gift, a work full of God?” Who can boast: “This year now passed I lay in grateful worship, O my God, as a pure offering upon the altar of Thy holiness!” No, the best of us do not dare to bring this to his lips; and the most godly among God’s saints kneels rather the most lowly in self-accusation and in hushed humility at that altar of his God.