Redeeming the Time
Around the world, many churches tonight from a variety of traditions, including Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists and Anglicans, will celebrate a “Watchnight Service.” As Christians bring in the New Year with prayers and hymns, Scripture and sermons and Holy Communion, they celebrate what God has done for them these past many months and commit to living another year to His glory. In many African-American congregations, this service has special significance because on New Year’s Eve in 1862, African Americans waited with bated breath, often in churches, for that pivotal moment when Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation would take effect on Jan. 1, 1863.
I often wonder what that moment felt like for them. For centuries, they and their ancestors were brutalized and victimized in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Husbands were often violently separated from their wives; children were seized from their mothers. They were reduced to flesh and bone commodities. They were whipped, beaten, bought, sold and branded. They were well acquainted with the darkness that fills human souls. However, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was good news! And so, they prayed, sang hymns, read the Bible and waited well into the wee hours of the night, hoping and praying for their long last freedom from the tyranny of slavery.
There is much we can learn from this wise practice of celebrating Watchnight Services. It’s a tradition that says to God that our days, weeks, months and years are not our own, but they belong to Him.
Charles Hummel, in his book, “Tyranny of the Urgent” says that our “greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important.” (pg. 5) It’s common to become inescapably mired in our worldly priorities, goals and concerns that our calendars crowd out God. We even go as far as to set worldly New Year’s resolutions about our careers, finances, fitness or intellectual goals, while overlooking spiritual priorities like praying and spending time in God’s word. But God has redeemed us from the tyranny of the urgent and the busy. He has placed us beside the still waters of eternal life. Thus, in Ephesians 5:16, Paul exhorts us to “redeem the time, because the days are evil.” The Psalmist prays, “Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12) When Martha complains to Jesus that Mary is spending time with Him, but isn’t helping Martha with her busy-ness, Jesus replies, “Only one thing is necessary.” (Luke 10:42) Jesus is right. Only one thing is necessary. And this new year, may we redeem the time God has blessed us with and wholly pursue that one thing.
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