NEW YEAR’S DAY

Last night the final day of the Lord came one step closer. In assorted ways and with a mixture of feelings we watched the hands on the clock make their last revolution and inch their way into the new year.

No one really looks different, and the scenery hasn’t changed between yesterday and today, but we have that feeling of climax, knowing yesterday is last year. In the mind’s eye, there is a great, long distance between today and all that happened last year. We feel a newness, a freshness about this day and the days immediately ahead.

Yet the change of years is really just part of a longer process in which years change often. On some date last year each of us became another year older and, God willing, the same will occur this year. New Year’s reminds us of that change; i…