New Year’s Celebrations for Holiday Skeptics

Maybe, like me, you’re not a fan of Hallmark holidays—those invented days that seem designed mainly to monetize our sentimentality. (Friendship Day, anyone?) Or perhaps you’ve grown weary of New Year’s resolutions, shaking your head at our remarkable confidence that this year will be different, despite ample evidence to the contrary. If so, you may wonder whether Christians should pay much attention to the New Year at all.

That skepticism is understandable—and it has a long history. John Calvin, for example, cautioned his congregation in Geneva against giving special spiritual weight to feast days and holidays. His concern was not with celebration itself, but with superstition: the idea that worship on a particular day might earn God’s favor. Instead, Calvin emphasized that every day belongs to the Lord—every day is, in a real sense, a holy day.

Still, it’s worthwhile to consider how a day of celebration could help us to be rightly ordered in our love for God, our neighbors, and even the rest of creation. Looking back at the Old Testament, we see that under the Mosaic ceremonial law, Israel was commanded to observe festivals throughout the year—each one pointing forward to the blessings that would be fulfilled through the coming Messiah. These rhythms helped God’s people remember who they were and what they were waiting for.

Perhaps that offers a way to think about the New Year as well. While Scripture does not command us to observe it, the turn of the year taps into a deep human longing—for renewal, for a clean slate, for something better. When that hope is invested only in self-improvement or resolutions, it quickly proves thin. But when the New Year reminds us of our truer hope—the day when Christ makes all things new—it becomes something worth celebrating.

As we share that hope with our friends, families, and neighbors, we join in anticipating the promise of the new heavens and the new earth, when the one seated on the throne declares: “See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

Happy New Year—until all is made new.