New Years History
The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. In the years around 2000 BC, the Babylonian New Year began with the first New Moon (actually the first visible cresent) after the Vernal Equinox (first day of spring).
The beginning of spring is a logical time to start a new year. After all, it is the season of rebirth, of planting new crops, and of blossoming. January 1, on the other hand, has no astronomical nor agricultural significance. It is purely arbitrary.
The Babylonian new year celebration lasted for eleven days. Each day had its own particular mode of celebration, but it is safe to say that modern New Year's Eve festivities pale in comparison.
The Romans continued to observe the new year in late March, but their calendar was continually tampered with by various emperors so that the calendar soon became out of synchronization with the sun.
In order to set the calendar right, the Roman senate, in 153 BC, declared January 1 to be the beginning of the new year, but tampering continued until Julius Caesar, in 46 BC, established what has come to be known as the Julian Calendar. It again established January 1 as the new year. But in order to synchronize the calendar with the sun, Caesar had to let the previous year drag on for 445 days. At first, Julius Caesar instituted New Year's Day to honor Janus, the two-faced god who looks backwards into the old year and forwards into the new. The custom of "New Years resolutions" began in this earliest period, as the Romans made resolutions with a moral flavor: mostly to be good to others.
When Rome took on Christianity as its official faith, the Christians kept New Years Day. Only, they traded the vaguely moral emphasis for a practice of fasting and prayer aimed at living the New Year in the New Life of Christ. Soon, however, the new year celebration reverted to March 1, and this early emphasis on spiritual things dissolved. Or rather, it shifted to a new celebration on January 1. Beginning in the middle of the sixth century, parts of the church began to set aside January 1 as the Feast of the Circumcision, commemorating Jesus' circumcision.
There’s no Biblical significance to this day, however, once the Church decided that the birth of Christ would be remembered on 25 December, the date certainly took on religious significance. The eighth day of Christmas falls on 1 January. Since Hebrew boy children were to be circumcised on their eighth day, we commemorate the Circumcision and Name of Jesus “And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” - Luke 2:21. Both of these are important, the naming because He received the “Name that is above every name, “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;” -Philippians 2:9,10. The name that was also His “job description,” since Jesus means “He saves.”
His birth in human flesh meant that our Lord was “born under the law “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” - Galatians 4:4,5. That is, the general moral law to which all mankind was subject. His circumcision placed Him in the Abrahamic Covenant, making Him also subject to the Mosaic Law. As the “new Adam,” Jesus perfectly kept the law that our first parent transgressed and that is written into every person’s heart (See Romans 5:12-21).
As the “perfect Israel,” He never departed from the fullness of the law that was handed down through Moses to God’s chosen people at Sinai, the law against which Israel continually sinned. We see from various events in His life that Jesus reenacted major parts of Israel’s history, showing Himself as Israel’s Redeemer. His flight to Egypt with His parents to flee Herod and subsequent return paralleled Jacob’s family moving to Egypt during the famine and then being brought out in the Exodus. His baptism echoed the Red Sea crossing while the forty days of testing in the Wilderness remind us of the forty years Israel spent in the Wilderness before entering the Promised Land.
This day is quite significant to the Christian. It praises the saving name of Jesus, celebrates His perfect obedience to the entirety of God’s holy Law, and remembers the first token of His blood sacrifice that would be completed years later on the cross.
