Spiritual Renewal

As the clock strikes midnight on December 31, many people may share a kiss with their significant other, cheer, and use noisemakers to celebrate a new year. And sure, a kiss at midnight and making noise are some of the common new year traditions that are said to bring you luck, they certainly not the only ones.

Here are some of the most unique, and maybe even lesser known, New Year’s superstitions from various countries around the world that are thought to help bring good luck and ward off the bad for the new year.

Walk Around with an Empty Suitcase - In Spain and Latin American the custom is supposed to welcome new experiences and a year filled with traveling.

Throw Furniture from a Window - In some European cultures, you can find people throwing couches, fridges and more from their window when the clock strikes midnight. This symbolizes doing away with the old and welcoming in the new.

Leave Windows and Doors Open - Leaving your doors and windows open on New Year's Eve is said to let out the old year.

Break Dishes - In Denmark it is considered good luck and a sign of friendship to break dishes and plates on the homes of those closest to you.

Clean the House - Many people around the world believe in starting New Year's Day with a clean house in order to avoid carrying the old or dirt of last year into the new year.

Burn Photos - An Ecuadorian superstition calls for burning photos of old memories before midnight in order to make way for the new things to come.

Possible Preaching Angle:
While we don’t participate in worldly superstitions, these traditions can be an interesting way to remind believers that the Bible promises them a fresh start every morning with God (“new every morning” Lam. 3:22-23) and not just on New Year’s Day.

AMacario Martínez was one of the thousands of fluorescent-green uniformed street sweepers in Mexico City, toiling with their long-bristled brushes in 8-hour shifts for about $10 a day. Then came the video.

Martínez, a 24-year-old aspiring musician and composer, recorded himself riding on the back of his garbage truck as it rumbled down the city’s tree-lined Reforma Avenue, his fellow sweepers unaware. He made several takes early one morning and then laid the images over a plaintive, romantic song he’d written about a love scorned. At 7 p.m. on Jan. 27, he posted it on TikTok. Waking up the next day for his 6 a.m. shift, Martínez was shocked to see “Sueña Lindo, Corazón” (“Beautiful Dream, My Love”) had around 100,000 views.

“That day I went to work, but I was really distracted because I kept checking my TikTok,” Martínez said in an interview. Two weeks later, he quit.

Martínez became an overnight sensation… People now recognize Martínez on the streets of Mexico City and want selfies with him. His first performance after “Sueña Lindo” went viral was a free concert on Valentine’s Day in front of a few hundred enthusiastic fans at a landmark outdoor Mexico City cultural center. Martínez invited his former co-workers to the front row, where they cheered him on.

Preaching Angles:

The new birth in Jesus will most likely not give us fame and riches, but it will give us a new name, a new relationship with God the Father, the gift of eternal life, and all the spiritual riches of the heavenly places.

Every year, Christians of various denominations observe Lent, a six-week period ahead of Easter, where participants "give something up" while pursuing a closer relationship with God. Usually, when someone decides what they will be giving up, they will pick a habit, food, or hobby that they enjoy enough that it will be significantly missed throughout the period of Lent. That way, its absence is extremely noticeable (and even a little uncomfortable) as they make such a substantial shift in their typical day-to-day. Then, the yearning for what has been given up works as a reminder to turn to God and recognize how He truly meets all needs.

For those who observe Lent annually, it can be challenging to think of new ideas of what they will give up each winter. Trying to figure out what you'll be giving up for Lent this year? Here are 10 meaningful things to give up for Lent:

1. Complaining – Take the opportunity to choose gratitude over grumbling.

2. Sweet treats – It will help your health and be a reminder that only God truly sustains us.

3, Television – Stop the small screen binge and grow in your spiritual life instead.

4. Screen Time – Spend less time checking friends’ updates and check in with Christ.

5. Gossiping – It’s easy to insult or judge others. Instead, tame your tongue biblically.

6. Video games – Instead of fantasy worlds of adventure, read the real-life stories of the Bible.

7. Shopping – Decide not to store up treasures in your closet, but store them up in heaven.

8. Coffee – Instead of facing the world with caffeine, learn to rely on God.

9. Soda – Every time you think about grabbing that fizzy drink, use it as a reminder to pray.

10. Worrying – You can’t stop worry completely, but choose to go to God with it instead.

Possible Preaching Angles:

This a good way to set up a sermon on Lent or spiritual disciplines.

In the 1980s, a research facility called Biosphere 2 built a closed ecosystem to test what it would take to eventually colonize space. Everything was carefully curated and provided for and trees planted inside sprung up and appeared to thrive. Then they began to fall.

The botanists must have looked on in dismay, finding no evidence of disease or mite or weevil. There was nothing to cause the trees to topple; the conditions were perfect. And then they realized what was missing—something so simple, yet absent within the confines of the structure: wind.

The air was too still, too serene—an ease that guaranteed the trees were doomed. It’s the pressure and variation of natural wind that causes the trees to strengthen and their roots to grow. Though the trees of Biosphere 2 had all the sun, soil, and water they needed, in the absence of changing winds they built no resilience, and eventually fell under the weight of their own abundance.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Lent helps us see the trials of life in a new way. Could it be that our difficulties, more than our delights, are what drive us closer to God? Though we may still have a strong aversion to pain, we can see the hand of God when the winds of trial come to buffet, and we can take solace in the fact that our roots are growing deeper. Romans 5:3–5 encourages us: “We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope….”

Saying farewell to yesterday might be a challenge for some, but not for the numerous New Yorkers who bid a traditional farewell to 2023 in Times Square ahead of the big New Year's Eve celebration. At the 17th annual Good Riddance Day Thursday, bad memories were burned – literally.

Good Riddance Day is inspired by a Latin American tradition in which New Year’s revelers stuffed dolls with objects representing bad memories before setting them on fire.

In Times Square, attendees wrote down their bad memories on pieces of paper. "COVID," "Cancer," “Our broken healthcare system,” “Spam calls and emails,” “Bad coffee,” and “Single Use Plastics,” were some of the entries.

Every December 28, this event gives people the opportunity to write down everything they want to leave in the past and destroy any unpleasant, unhappy, and unwanted memories – so that they can toss them into an incinerator and watch them vanish.

Possible Preaching Angle:

What painful experience, memory, or consequence caused by sin would you like to leave behind in the New Year? This is a reality for the believer “Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!” (Lam 3:22-23). With Paul we can say “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:13).

More millennials attend church weekly now than before the start of the pandemic. According to a Barna Group survey of 13,000 adults, roughly 16 percent of regular churchgoers have not returned to services at all in 2022, but weekly attendance among those born between 1981 and 1996 has risen from 21 percent to 39 percent this year.

The trend can be partly explained by life stage. Across age cohorts, church attendance is highest when people have young children, drops off for “empty nesters,” and then increases again when friends start to pass away. The oldest millennials are 40 and 41

Death abounded in America in 2020 and 2021. According to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 570,000 more people died in 2020 than in 2019, with about 350,000 of those attributable to COVID-19. Another 350,000 people died from the coronavirus by the fall of 2021, bringing the death total to 700,000 and counting (as of March 18, 2022 over 969k deaths are attributable to COVID).

When roughly that same number died over the four years of the Civil War, it had a widespread impact on American culture. Historians say changes included increased attention to cemeteries, the rise in the importance of family photographs, and rapid growth in the popularity of practices of spiritualism, a new religious movement that claimed to help people communicate with the dead.

What impact today’s pandemic deaths will have on American culture remains to be seen. But one shift is notable now: The percentage of people age 40 and older who say that religion is “very important” in the funeral of a loved one has gone up for the first time in a decade.

The importance of religion at funerals jumped 10 percentage points in 2020. It went up another 2 points in 2021. Most Americans still don’t think religion is important at funerals, but a growing number are feeling a new need for it.

Sarah Jones, an atheist raised in a strict evangelical home, wrote about this experience:

I could plant a flag for my grandfather . . . but the gesture feels thin. I don’t know what exactly I would want from a memorial—whether it’s catharsis or meaning or something else altogether. I thought several hundred times this year, Maybe I should go to church.

After Abraham Walker’s older brother was shot and killed in a home invasion, he decided to move his family from New Orleans to Northern Virginia. He was drawn by the chance to give his boys a life in which they wouldn’t see the loss of friends and relatives as “normal.”

He describes himself as an “aggressive optimist” who looks for the good during the awful, and when he doesn’t see it, he tries to create it. It’s why when he clicked on a Facebook page for residents in a neighboring county, he read through the posts and then started typing: “What are some positive things that have happened to you because of COVID-19?”

In the days since, hundreds of people have responded, offering comments that tell of everything from simple appreciations to life-altering revelations:

I have been having the BEST time with my 4-year-old. I never thought of myself as a good mother, but this isolation has brought us so close together.

I successfully grew a tomato.

We have a swing set in our yard now.

Before COVID I just got up late, ran around in a panic, usually in a bad mood or at least sad, endured a road rage-filled commute, and arrived at the office late. ... Now I wake up and think, “Oh, I woke up again” and then I go out to my balcony amidst the pine trees and the chirping birds and rising sun.

Walker has also been thinking about some posts long after he read them:

I think a lot of people are going to be so traumatized by their old lives that they won’t go back. I hope some people don’t go back. That’s the beautiful thing about destruction. You used to have a life. The coronavirus destroyed that life. You now get to decide how you rebuild that life.

Walker says his brother’s death was a tragedy, but it pushed him to relocate to Northern Virginia, where his family has created a life, made friends, and connected with neighbors. He says, “Look at the afterward. History tells us there is always an afterward.”

When David Schwartz left his university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-Wreck as a joke. Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up shabby vehicles waiting the scrap heap in California. He looked forward to watching people's faces as he showed them round the collection of bumperless, dented vehicles. To his lasting surprise there was an insatiable demand for them and he now has thriving branches all over America and Scandinavia.

Schwartz said, “People like driving round in the worst available. If a driver damages the side of a car and is honest enough to admit it, I tell him, ‘Forget it.’ If they bring a car back late, we overlook it. One Los Angeles wife asked 'Where's the ashtray?' as she settled into the ripped interior. 'Honey,' said her husband, 'the whole car's the ashtray.’”

Who would have thought it? A fortune from broken down cars.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This world is broken. People are broken. God made the world perfect, but it got wrecked by humankind going their own way. But here’s the good news. God offers to mend broken lives through Jesus Christ his Son. Paul said “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). There’s a place in God's kingdom for you.

In Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Batman assembles a team of super-champions to take on a rising tide of super-villains. An ancient entity named Steppenwolf is leading an army in a hunt for a weapon powerful enough to destroy the planet. Humanity needs a team of heroes.

The film’s world of CGI heroics and villainy is humanized when high school student Barry Allen is invited to join the league. Initially, Allen (aka Flash) is super-excited to be in a super-hero league. It is always more exciting to “be” than it is to “do.” But when it comes time to do what superheroes do (i.e. save people), the Flash finds himself paralyzed with uncertainty. Preparing to take on the evil Steppenwolf, the Flash tries to explain his emotional struggle to Batman:

Here’s the thing. See, I’m afraid of bugs, and guns, and obnoxiously tall people. I can’t be here! It’s really cool you guys seem ready to do battle and stuff, but I’ve never done battle. I’ve just pushed some people and run away!”

Batman brings clarity to fear with two simple words:

Batman: “Save one.”
The Flash: What?
Batman: Save one person.
The Flash: Which one?
Batman: Don’t talk. Don’t fight. Get in. Get one out.
The Flash: And then?
Batman: You’ll know.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Big tasks are commonly accompanied by big doubts. We need God’s power in our weakness. (2) Sometimes Jesus doesn’t ask us to do big, heroic deeds. He merely calls us to do the small deeds of kindness right in front of us.

There’s a powerful scene in a novel written by the South African writer Alan Paton. The story centers on a young police lieutenant, husband, and father named Pieter. Pieter struggles with depression, he has what we would call “father issues,” and he’s on the verge of an affair with a younger woman. His wife and children are out of town so he goes to see his good friend, a man nicknamed Kappie. Among other things the two friends share an interest in the hobby of stamp collecting.

Pieter shows up intending to humble himself, to repent, and to make a full confession of his struggles, his temptations. As Alan Paton writes, Peiter knows what he should say: “[Kappie], I am here to tell you of the deep misery of my life, and you must help me … before I am destroyed … you must tell me something in God’s name.” But he said none of those things. Instead, Pieter nonchalantly lies about why he really came: “Kappie, I’m sick of the empty house, and I’m wanting to see some stamps.” So they listen to music and look at stamps. Kappie knew that his friend had something deeper on his mind. So when Pieter started to leave Kappie said, “You can come every night if you wish.” But Pieter walks out and does not return. And Alan Paton writes, “Ah, if he could have told … And yet he could not tell.” Pieter wants repentance without risk, without cost, without vulnerability.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Repentance requires vulnerability. To repent means to open my heart to God and to others and say, “I’m in over my head and I need you.”

Until recently, the only way to study how a caterpillar changes into a butterfly was to cut open the chrysalis or x-ray it—both with fatal results. But a recent issue of National Geographic reported on new micro-CT scans that show how metamorphosis takes place.

Metamorphosis is a radical change in form and function. Many animals go through this process (frogs, sea urchins, wasps, beetles), but most of us know about metamorphosis from caterpillars that become butterflies. Yet scientists are only beginning to grasp the miracle of what goes on in a chrysalis. New research shows that the insect’s makeover is a mix of destruction of old ways of being and thinking combined with brand new ways of being and thinking.

The article notes that, “Certain cells die, and body parts atrophy. Meanwhile, other cells, in place since birth, rapidly expand.” The adult emerges “completely remodeled, capable of flight” and possessing a completely rewired brain.

Possible Preaching Angles:

New Birth; Spiritual Growth; Sanctification; Renewal—In the same way, our new birth in Christ causes certain sins and bad habits to die and atrophy while new habits and thoughts emerge. We become “completely remodeled” in Christ. And yet, this doesn’t happen overnight. The process of sanctification takes time.

Daniel McNeely is a pediatric neurosurgeon in Halifax, Nova Scotia, so he’s used to fielding questions from nervous parents and patients. But it was a first for him when an 8-year-old patient had a specific request as the child was being wheeled to surgery while clutching his stuffed animal: “My bear is ripped. Please stitch him up.”

The boy, identified as Jackson McKie, has a cyst on his brain and a chronic condition called hydrocephalus, according to Global News. The surgery was to drain fluid and relieve pressure on his brain.

McNeely assured the boy he would, and he took the task seriously. After McNeely performed surgery on the boy’s brain, he placed the bear on a table, put on blue gloves and used leftover stitches from the child’s surgery to repair an underarm tear on the bear.

Then in another first, McNeely — who had never tweeted before — went on Twitter Sunday to post a photo of the moment that had been captured by a resident. He wrote, “Patient asks if I can also fix teddy bear just before being put off to sleep... how could I say no?”

“He’s one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met,” Jackson’s father, Rick McKie, said of McNeely. McKie said his son was thrilled when he woke up to see his stuffed buddy, which he takes with him everywhere he goes, had been stitched up just like him. McKie said that his family deeply appreciates McNeely’s medical care over the years, as well as his human touch. “When we get there we’re terrified to death, but every time we talk to Dr. McNeely we feel better.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Gentleness; Good Shepherd; Humanity of Christ - Jesus was tender and gentle with children, as well as the weak and fearful. In our deepest need, he puts our mind at rest with his personal attention. 2) Renewal; Restoration—Christ not only forgives our sins, he also restores our lives by stitching up our brokenness.

Only when grace is the first and last word of contemplation can the scars of spiritual sin be healed.

Sometimes telling a story has as much effect on the teller as it does the listeners. Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, recalls:

"My grandfather was lame. Once they asked him to tell a story about his teacher, and he related how his master used to hop and dance while he prayed. My Grandfather rose as he spoke and was so swept away by his story that he himself began to hop and dance to show how the master had done. From that hour he was cured of his lameness."

When we tell the story of our Master, we too experience his power.