Although two weeks of the new year has already gone by, 2025 is lying in our hands like a brand new sixpence. A sixpence, in the days before the country changed to a new currency, was a small coin with a lot of buying power, especially for a six-year-old child in the late fifties of the previous century. What a gift it was to receive a sixpence! With a sixpence, you were able to buy a bottle of cooldrink and a paper bag of sweets at Uncle Japie’s shop in Groblershoop, and even got a penny change – riches for a small child.

 

This verse from Corinthians made me think about that brand new sixpence that I held very tightly in my small hand. I was afraid of losing it before I reached the shop with all its treats. Thinking about this, I wondered what am I going to do in this brand new year with the great gift God gave me through his Son, Jesus Christ. How am I going to make sure this great gift will not be lost through the worries and bothers of life?

 

How well we look after a gift is mostly determined by the value we put on the gift. Because the sixpence was quite valuable to me when I was a small boy, I looked after it very well. God’s gift to us is so precious that we have to guard it with our lives. His gift to us is to make us brand new people. God does not just dust us off a little, he recreates us to become brand new. The old person that was me does not exist anymore as “the new has come”.

 

How does God accomplish this? We are, after all, sinners. It does sound almost impossible that God can do this. The words of our Scripture reading give away the secret: “Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being.” God sacrificed his own Son so that you and I could live as brand new people in this brand new year.

 

Prayer: I have to confess that I have already broken many of my new year resolutions. Please help me Lord to stay true to my resolution to be a brand new person through Christ. Amen