Fourth Day Of The New Year

It has come! The final day of a mixed week has come! When I heard the words, mixed week, excitement began to mount within me, as the idea of the meaning of mixed, took on not just Biblical, historical images, but personal tones.

It is most obvious and clear that this has been a mixed week, as it has been made up of many mixed happenings. Here are a few. Check them out!

This week has been made up of the year 2024 and the year 2025 – one God-given year gone so that another God-given year can come. How does this remind us of Jesus?

We are taken back to the time when Jesus was about to begin His publicly, earthly ministry. We hear John the Baptist on several occasions, openly confessing this fact, speaking this truth that Jesus will come after him. On one occasion, this is what he told his listeners about Jesus. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. John 1: 27. Clearly, John is quite aware that when he goes, he who is God’s chosen servant to make straight the way of the Lord, then, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, will take over and continue, as it were. Even more strikingly open, are these words which bear clear testimony that Jesus did not begin His public work until John was no more. When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum. Matthew 4: 12 – 13a.

The Word of God vividly states this. From that time on Jesus began to preach, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. Matthew 4: 17. Interestingly, we cannot bypass the fact that Jesus was continuing the exact message which John preached. In other words, the text for John’s sermons never died with him or went out with him, for the same text was carried on and preached by Jesus. This is what is recorded in Matthew 3: 1 – 2. In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

As you leave this mixed week, give God thanks for it. It is in the ending of one God-given year and the beginning of another God-given year that we are made to look up at John, the Baptist and Jesus, the Lamb of God and be fully drenched in faith and hope. Amen!

This week has been mixed up with old and new - three days of old year and four days of the new year. How does this point us to Jesus? When we hear the word, new, it’s not unnatural to think of new as being the opposite of old. In our Christian pilgrimage we certainly hear of covenant as being new. Is there a new covenant and an old covenant? Our minds are taken to prophecy. We listen to God’s Word, given to Jeremiah, for God’s people.

The days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them declares the LORD. This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the LORD, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbour, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD’, because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. Jeremiah 31: 31 - 34

As you leave this mixed week, give God all the honour and the glory, for such a hope-building week. It’s the end of an old, God-given covenant and the beginning of a new, God-given covenant. Know that this covenant is now written in each believer who accepts Jesus as God’s Son, for He is our New, Guaranteed Covenant. Amen!

This week was measured up in the old and the young – the old year and the young year. How does this bring us to Jesus? Let’s follow here, as we look to Jesus, the Son of David. The Bible has numerous references to Jesus as, the Son of David. Here are some well-known ones.

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, on that First Palm Sunday, the crowds were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Matthew 21: 9b.

Two blind men are following Jesus and calling out, “Have mercy upon us, Son of David.” Matthew 9: 27b.

People are openly saying that Jesus is the Christ, but others are refuting it, quoting Scripture. Does not Scripture say that the Christ will come from David’s family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived? John 7: 42.

Among all that the angel told Mary about Jesus, he said this. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. Luke 1: 32

Having shown that Jesus is of David, we turn to a very crucial and often forgotten fact. Jesus came from a mixed family, in terms of age and lineage. Let’s look at Boaz and Ruth.

Age – Boaz is an older man who marries Ruth, a younger woman. When Ruth goes to Boaz for him to, spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer, Ruth 3: 9b, Boaz is very touched, this is what he says. You have not turned to the younger men, rich or poor. Ruth 3: 10b. The three days of the old year and four days of the young year have been mixed. It can produce good lasting fruit, from which Jesus can come. Like the mixed marriage of old and young, so too, this week’s union of old and young can produce God-given fruit.

Lineage - Boaz, is an Ephrathite from Bethlehem. Ruth is a Moabite from Moab. These countries were very far apart in any kind of healthy relationship. In fact, in a very real way, Moab was considered an outcast nation, unclean, unwanted, a ‘dead’ people, by the ruling in Bethlehem. That’s partly why the nearest kinsman refused to marry Ruth. Boaz defied all rules and made covenant with her in marriage. God honoured this union of ‘dead’ and ‘living’ as it were, and gave them a son whose name was Obed. From this mixed family came David. Boaz the father of Obed, Obed, the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David. Ruth 4: 21b – 22. There you have it! Jesus, the Son of David, has come down through a mixed combination of the old and the young; the ‘dead’ and the ‘living’.