Homily for the New Year

This is an excerpt from John Chrysostom’s “Homily for the New Year.” In it, John warns his congregation to not let the spirit of the holiday (drunkenness and partying in the culture of the time) overcome Christian witness and moral behavior. But John’s message, while full of moral admonition, is also full of good news. John points his hearers to gratitude, for having lived another year; he points them to God’s Word which overcomes sorrow and gives joy better than drunkenness, and he uses the celebration of New Years to remind his congregation that God is coming again and will make all things truly new.

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The whole year will be fortunate for you, not if you are drunk on the new-moon [New Year’ Day], but if both on the new-moon [January 1st], and each day, you do those things approved by God. For days come wicked and good, not from their own nature; for a day differs nothing from another day but from our zeal and sluggishness. If you perform righteousness, then the day becomes good for you; if you perform sin, then it will be evil and full of retribution. If you contemplate these things and are so disposed, you will consider the whole year favorable, performing prayers and charity every day; but if you are careless of virtue for yourself, and you entrust the contentment of your soul to beginnings of months and numbers of days, you will be desolate of everything good unto yourself. […]

A strong drink does not produce delight, but spiritual prayer; not wine, but a learned word. Wine effects a storm, but the Word [of God] effects calm; the former transports in an uproar, the latter expels disturbance; the former darkens the understanding, the latter lightens the darkened; the former imports despondencies that are non-existent, the latter drives away those there were [1]. For nothing is so accustomed to produce contentment and delight, as the teachings of [our]philosophy [wisdom]:[which is]to despise present affairs, to yearn for the things to come, to consider nothing of human affairs to be secure, and if you behold some rich man not to be bitten with envy, and if you fall into poverty not to be downcast by that poverty. Thus, you are always able to celebrate festivals.

For the Christian ought to hold feasts, not for months, nor new moons, nor Lord’s days, but continually through life to conduct a feast befitting him. What is the feast that befits him? Let us listen to Paul speaking, “Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not in the old leaven, nor by the leaven of evil and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” [1 Corinthians 5,8].

If then you have a clean conscience, you hold a feast continually, nourished with good hopes, and reveling in the delight of the good things to come; then just as if you conducted yourself lacking boldness, and you were liable for many sins, and if there be ten thousand feasts and holy-days, you would be in no better state than those grieving. For what is the benefit to me of bright days, if my soul is darkened in its conscience? If then one wishes to gain some benefit from the new moon, do this. When you see the year ending, thank the Lord, because he had led you into this cycle of years. Stab the heart [‘prick the heart’] reckon up the time of your life, say to oneself: “The days run and pass by, the year's fill-up, we have progressed much of the way; What good is there for us to do? Will we not depart from here, empty and deserted of all righteousness, the judgment at the doors, the rest of life leads us to our old age.”

These things, [from the new moon], contemplate on New Year’s Day, these from the circuit of the years, recollect. Let us reckon the future day, no longer something spoken to us that, which was said to the Jews by the prophet, “Their days slipped away in vanity, and their years with haste”[Psalm 77:33 LXX]. This is the feast which I mentioned, the continual one, and the one not delayed by the passage of years, not limited by days, both the rich and the poor will be able to celebrate in the same manner: For here there is no want of wealth, nor provision, but only of virtue. Do you not have wealth? But you have the fear of God, a treasure more fruitful than all wealth, not consumed, not changed, not spent-up. Look to heaven, and to the heaven of heavens, the earth, the sea, the air, the kinds of the animals, the manifold plants, the whole nature of human-beings; consider the angels, archangels, the powers above; recall that these are all creations of your Master. It is thus not poverty to be the slave of the providential Master if you have him as your propitious Lord. The observation of days is not of Christian philosophy [teaching, wisdom, see notes], but of Hellenic error.

Into the city above you are enrolled [i.e. as a citizen] into the polity [2] there you are reckoned, you will mingle with the angels; where light does not give way to darkness, nor day fulfilled tonight, but is always day, always light. To these, therefore, let us look continually. “For seek”, he says, “the things above, where Christ is seated at God’s right hand.” [Col 3:1]You have nothing in common with the earth, where the courses of the sun are, and circuits, and days; but if you live rightly, the night will be day for you; just as then for those living in licentiousness and drunkenness and intemperance, their day is turned into the darkness of night, not with the sun’s extinction, but the darkening of their mind by inebriation.

To be passionately excited towards these days, and to receive greater pleasure in them, and to kindle lights in the forum, and to weave wreaths, is of childish folly. But you have been freed from this weakness, and come into adulthood, and been enrolled in the polity of the heavens. Do not, therefore, kindle a sensate fire in the forum but kindle spiritual light in your mind. “For let”, he said, “your light shine before men, so they may see your good works, and they will glorify our Father in the heavens.” [Mt 5:16; Chrysostom has ‘our Father’ for ‘your Father’].

This light brings you much recompense. Do not crown the door of the house but display such a way of life so that you will receive the crown of righteousness on your head from the hand of Christ. Let nothing be done rashly, nor simply; thus, Paul enjoins that all things be done for the glory of God. “For whether you eat,” he said, “or drink, or do whatever, do all for the glory of God”