ONCE the end of all things shall be reached, all things shall be ended, that in the last judgment Christ may solemnly bring to a close the whole history of mankind; and then there waits for those, who live to see that youngest day, sensations and terrorizations, under which one would almost say, every human heart must succumb. And yet, not only do we move along unobservedly toward that striking end, but on the evening of the Old year, i. e. on New Year’s Eve already premonitory pangs go through our soul of what on that day of days shall perplex the mind of man. Not so much with the eye to the future, as looking back on what lies behind, something of that same painful feeling sometimes takes hold of us now, with the passing of another whole year of life, which will bring regret and terror to the heart of all mankind, at the sound of what God’s Herald shall then proclaim. “It is done.”
And He said unto me, so we read in the last chapter but one of Holy Scripture, and He said unto me: “It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. And I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things.”
Altogether something different from the: “It is finished” of Golgotha. That “It is finished” pointed to the Mediatorial work of Reconciliation and Satisfaction. “Finished” was then everything that God’s eternal law demanded from the fallen sinner, and in his stead from the Mediator, that the righteousness of God might remain unspotted and inviolate.
When that was done and had been struggled through to the end, Jesus in dying cried out: “It is finished.” But here an altogether different note is sounded. On the evening of that youngest day it shall be: It is done. The end of all things is come. What is past is past. The day of grace is ended. As the verdict stands, so the verdict remains. As in God’s holy counsel is was foreknown, so it has come to pass according to His plan. Now is the turningpoint, at which time for ever flows out into eternity. All that was to come, all that was to constitute the history of all human life, of every child of man, of all mankind, it has now been, it is past; it is irrevocably cut off. It is done.
That we have the right, in a relative sense, to apply that solemn outcry: It is done, to what lies back of it, appears from Rev. 16:17, where, with the appearance of an angel we overhear the same expression: And the seventh angel poured out his viol into the air, and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, saying: “It is done.”
What shall then be done, is not done at once, but in the course of years and centuries, and in that course of years and centuries there are periods of time, divided by great points of rest. Transition periods in your personal life, when great decisions in your personal existence take place, and you pass over from one condition into another, from your youth into your adult life, from your parental home out into the world, from your sense of sin into your consciousness of grace, and so much more.
So there are transitions, and thereby periods of time, which divide not only your life, but the life of all mankind, and one of these is the passing from year into year.
Not an imaginery division, but one ordered of God already in Paradise for our race, when He set the sun for a sign in the heavens, made the position of sun and world changeable, and made the point at which sun and world stand in the same position again, to be a restpoint in our human life.
The transition from the old into the new year comes from God, comes from His Divine firmament, and it is the position of our earth to the sun, which makes us pass over from year into year.
So God Himself makes division in our human life. He Himself has willed, that on the day of the old year we should pause a moment on our way, to look back upon what lies behind. And now, at that backward look “that great voice out of the temple of heaven” enters into our soul, saying: “It is done.” This year also sinks back into the past. What has been lived through in it, can no more be recalled; nothing more of it can be changed; It is done, and remains, as it is, a part of your life, a chapter in your life’s history.
It is done, all that from eternity God had intended, to bring about in that year now past. Even now His counsel stood, and He has done all His good pleasure.
There were thousands and tens of thousands, whom by Himself He had intended, in this past year by death to take out of life, and all these became sick unto death, or perished by some catastrophy, and the grave received their mortal remains.
Together with this there were ten thousands and more, of whom by Himself He had intended, that in this past year they should see the light of day, and all these were conceived in sin, they have been carried under the heart, they have been born of woman, and their birth has gladdened the mother-heart.