1. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. As we look back on a year nearly spent, let us begin this evening in prayer to our God, who turns the pages of the calendar: Eternal Lord, make us glad for all our time, even now the years of toil, because with You all our time is worth remembering forever. Amen. The message is entitled, “But, Deliver us This Day Our Daily Evil,” and it’s focused on Psalm 90.
2. At first blush, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly Christian about New Year’s Eve. What’s really different about 2021 New Year’s Eve that 2020 didn’t have? It’s the same old thing where we remember what happened this year and move on to the next. We can sound like King Solomon: Vanity of vanities. It’s all meaningless. The sun comes up, and the sun goes down, and pretty soon all our days will be forgotten anyway (Eccl 1:2–11). As Psalm 90 says: we fly away. And what was the point of it all? Time seems so trivial. Does stopping and remembering 2021 do us any good?
3. In Psalm 90, the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to pray: “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (v 12). Moses isn’t disagreeing with Solomon. Moses acknowledges our years are like grass to God. He’s eternal. If it seems as if our years pass by without meaning to us, how much more so for God? A thousand years are like yesterday to him. What is time to God?
4. And yet God says, “teach us to number our days.” And God does a good job of counting. God counts all the years of Adam’s life and the generations after him. God counts the years of life and reign for all the kings of Israel and Judah. God counts all the people delivered from Egypt and all those who entered the Promised Land. God counts all those exiled to Babylon, for how long, and when they returned. God counts all of Jesus’ human ancestors and the generations between Christ and Abraham. And here’s the point: God doesn’t have to count all those years, but he does.
5. It seems as silly as going into our yards and counting each blade of grass. That’s how personally God knows our days and years. Even though he’s immune to time, still he pays closer attention to it than we do. In fact, God enters time to know the passing of a year just as we do.
6. The King James Version begins the nativity of our Lord like so: “And it came to pass.” That doesn’t mean it came to pass and nobody cares. Instead, something came to happen, and it’s worth remembering. “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman” (Gal 4:4), born in time. Jesus, the eternal Son of God lived observing time. He remembered every Sabbath. He kept track of every day. Even though time is little to God, he knew time and paid close attention to it. He felt nails pierce through his flesh for six full hours of time until he gave up his last breath.
7. Jesus was born, died, buried, and rose from the dead in time. And Jesus has redeemed your life in time. Since God knows how you spend your time, he sees each one of your sins. He counts them one by one but then sweeps them away in the flood of your Holy Baptism. He’s aware of your secret sins, but they pass away to the cross of Christ Jesus. So that, though your earthly life comes to pass, it’s worth remembering as a redeemed child of God. He has come to you with his Word, during your life, and he has redeemed you. He has made your life worth living. He has made your time worth reflecting.
8. Whether you’re 7 or 8, 70 or 80, with the Lord your time matters. So we, along with Moses, pray: “establish the work of our hands” (v 17). In a sense, “Lord, help us make the most of our time.” “Lord, make us useful to our neighbors.” “Lord, help me use my time not just for personal reflection but also to love and serve my neighbor.”
9. New Year’s is a wonderful time to stop and see what God has done for us this past year. If nothing else than to see that this whole year, has all been redeemed and forgiven through Christ. A redeemed year is a good year. A redeemed year is a year God has used you to love and care for others. It’s a great year with the Lord.
10. It’s a good thing to celebrate New Year’s. But our joy isn’t found in reveling in the debauchery of New Year’s as we see on television (Gal 5:19–21). The reason why many of us don’t correlate New Year’s with Christianity is because we see New Year’s like our society sees birthdays. They’re fun until you’re 21, but after that we’d rather stop counting. The carnal pleasures of our youth aren’t the reason to celebrate New Year’s (Eccl 12:1).
11. We believe our time matters even if we’re older. We don’t with Moses pray “Make us glad” because we’re young (Ps 90:15). Moses lived 120 years. We don’t know when he wrote this psalm. But, take a moment to put yourselves in Moses’ shoes during a certain time of his life. In Numbers 13–14, God is ready to send his people into the Promised Land. But they fail to fear, love, and trust in him. Instead, they fear the Canaanites, and they reject the Promised Land, praying to go back to Egypt. So, God punishes them: everyone who’s over twenty years old at that time will die before he or she ever enters Canaan. That means for the next forty years all those older Hebrews will simply be waiting to die so that their children can receive their promise.
12. All the older generations whom God brought out of Egypt will never have a roof over their heads. They will never step foot in the land God has worked so hard to give them. Imagine that. Those Israelites knew they were going to die in the next 40 years, and the rest of their lives will be spent in the desert. 40 terrible years?
13. Knowing that was the plight of the Hebrews, hear Psalm 90:14–16 again, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.”
14. What a prayer! This was the reality for Moses’ last 40 years as well. Make us glad—not because we’re young. Make us glad—not because we get a rich party tonight. No. “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.” This is like combining the 4th and 7th Petitions of the Lord’s Prayer like so: “Lord, deliver us our daily evil.” It doesn’t mean the Hebrews wanted to be in the desert. We don’t want to see evil. But we can be glad that God delivers us from it.
15. This is the perfect prayer for the older Hebrews wandering in the wilderness. They have nothing to look forward to in this life. Even though they know there’s no earthly home for them, still they know God promises to give their children the land they rejected. And in that land of Canaan, outside Jerusalem, Christ will hang on the cross praying these words: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love” (Ps 90:14). And, on the morning of the third day, he rose from the dead. And with Christ rose the favor of God upon men. And with Christ rose the hope of a resurrection like his (2 Cor 4:14).
16. Whether Moses wrote that prayer at the beginning of the wilderness wandering or not, it certainly applies to his life then. And it applies to us now. Even though we may be old, we can still be glad. Even if our days feel like they’re cursed where we see evil every day in the world, we can still be glad. God is with us. God has made himself our dwelling place through Christ. Whether it’s 2021 or 2022, we’re baptized into Christ. Whether we’re young or old, God promises us a resurrection. Whether we lost a loved one this year or gained a new grandchild . . . whether this year we felt the sting of divorce in our family or rejoiced at a family wedding . . . whether our bodies are breaking down or maturing into adulthood, through it all, the Lord is our dwelling place. God doesn’t have us waiting to die in an evil world, without him. He hears our prayers and never departs from us.
17. Luther called these kinds of toil tentatio; that’s Latin for affliction or suffering. And this affliction isn’t something that’s useless. It’s useful. Because with suffering, we see our dependence on God. Each affliction is an opportunity to pray and trust in God. And he’s there. Immanuel: God with us.
18. What faith the Hebrews displayed in the wilderness for 40 years. Each day they’d wake up, eat their manna, face their toil, and wait to die. They knew they’d never step foot in Canaan, but they trusted in the Lord’s promise of eternal life in the resurrection. Each day he gave them daily bread and their daily toil that pointed them to life after death through Jesus. So, they kept praying, through all their tentatio, “make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us” (Ps 90:15). They weren’t praying for toil. But they were praying for gladness in the suffering. Because each day with the Lord was a day, he was bringing them closer to the Promised Land of heaven. So, God gave the Hebrews gladness even during their years of toil.
19. That’s how we end our collects, “one God, now and forever.” We pray believing we live with God—now and forever. We pray to God now and forever because when we’re with him we have a dwelling place for eternity. It’s the same thing we pray in the Seventh Petition: deliver us from evil. This means that God “would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven” (SC, Seventh Petition). Even now in all the years we see evil, God delivers us from it all forever.
20. Our earthly time comes and goes, but it’s so worth it to stop and see how God has redeemed all of it. It’s a good thing to reflect on how God has established the work of our hands to love and serve our neighbor. It’s joyful to see how God even permits suffering in our older years to drive us back to depending on him. It’s a happy New Year, because we’ve been given faith in Christ, who promises us a blessed end—now and forever. Again, we pray: Eternal Lord, make us glad for all our time, even now the years of toil, because with you all our time is worth remembering forever. Amen. The peace of God that surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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