Sermon on New year’s eve
Newsletter N. 105, January 1979
31 December 1978 (new style) (Russian Christmas, 25 December old style, fell a week later)
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Today once more the gates of time are opened and the new year that is entering is presented to our sight. And through these gates we see the coming Nativity of Christ, which we shall be celebrating in just a week.
Through Christ's birth eternity enters into this new year of time, the living God enters time, becomes man and communes in His flesh with every created being. Time and eternity mingle with each other, and we now stand on the threshold of this miracle; time and eternity, God and man are joined in a single torrent of life and salvation. And now, as every year, when we look round at the past and survey the future we are grieved that so many are no longer with us and sleep the sleep of the earth. Yet at the same time a joy is kindled at the thought that they have entered that eternity which is now pouring like a torrent into time.
And again, looking round at the past, we see how much we have been unable to accomplish in the course of the year through weakness, forgetfulness, procrastination, through our ill will. So before entering the new year let us repent before God, let us admit our mistakes, and from the past year let us gather the experience of life which will allow us not to repeat them or make others of a similar nature. The whole purpose of life is simply to love God and love our neighbour, so that everything should be done in the name of that love. In an old Russian tale a wise man was asked, «What is the most important time in life? Who is the most significant person in your life? What act is it most important to perform?» His answer was: «The most important time is the present moment, because the past is already over and the future has not yet come, The most significant person in your life is the one who is before you now, the one to whom you can do good or evil; and the most important action in your life is to give this person, at this moment, all that can be given him.»
Let us enter this new year with a feeling of responsibility and inspiration. Let us enter this new year with the faith that the power of God is made perfect in weakness, in our weakness, as it was in the weakness of the saints who were strong only in the power of God. Let us have faith that all things are possible to us in the strengthening power of the Jesus Christ.
Standing at the threshold of the new year I should like to quote words which King George VI addressed to his people: «I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied 'Go out into the darkness and put thine hand into the hand of God: that shall be to thee better than light and safer than a known way.” Let us also enter the new year with this confidence and this faith; then we can pray that God should bless it and us. Let us also turn in prayer to St. Stephen of Sourozh whose memory we keep on the Sunday following his feast day. Let him be that man at the gate who will open the new year to us, who will enter it with us and give us his blessing, so that like him we may make this year a year of God's will and grace. And now receive God’s blessing and let us pray in our Molyeben for the Lord to forgive our sins and the Lord’s forgiveness in our hope in the faithfulness that we promise to God; and let us enter upon this path without fear, with a responsive, reverent heart. Amen.