The New Year customs of the world all reach for the same thing, a fresh start, a world made new, but Scripture answers that longing at the fall itself. When Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened in shame, God did not leave them covered in fig leaves; he clothed them with garments of skin, and even in pronouncing the curse he promised the gospel, the one who sits on the throne saying, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
That promise is fulfilled in Christ. God so loved the world that he gave his Son, not to condemn it but to save it, and everyone who is in Christ is a new creation, the old has passed away, the new has come. Buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life, believers are called to put off the old self and put on the new, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. The true New Year, the message concludes, is Christmas itself, God’s condescension in the incarnation, by which believers are clothed with Christ’s righteousness and adopted as his own sons.