Welcoming the New Year with Blessings

By Dr. James Yu

The Chinese love celebrating Chinese New Year (CNY) and long CNY holidays are very popular with the people.

According to ancient Chinese culture, the Chinese calendar used till this day was established during the Xia Dynasty of ancient China, hence it is called the Xia Calendar. Confucius referred to "following the Xia calculation of time," which meant using this Xia Dynasty lunar calendar. Some people view the lunar calendar as outdated and consider celebrating CNY to be a superstitious practice. While some Chinese do follow superstitions during CNY, celebrating it as opposed to how it is celebrated are two wholly different things. Many people around the world also use the lunar calendar, such as the Israelites who switched to it over 3,600 years ago and still use it today, and there is nothing wrong.

The ancestors of the Israelites were slaves in Egypt performing hard labour. They cried out to God and He sent Moses to lead them out of Egypt. God also instructed them to change the starting point of the year: "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year." (Exodus 12:2). The Egyptians continued to worship their sun god and using the solar calendar. Later, when Rome became the world power, they too used the solar calendar and named the seven days of the week after the celestial bodies worshipped by the Egyptians: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn, calling them the "seven luminaries". The seven-day week was thus established, and the period of the week was built upon "star cycles". 

Since the late Qing Dynasty when the imperial system was abolished, China followed the global trend and adopted the solar calendar. However, the lunar calendar is still widely used among the people, who renamed the first day of the year to "Spring Festival". The tradition of the Chinese hanging spring couplets during CNY began with Lord Meng Chang, the ruler of late Shu Dynasty, who wrote: "The New Year enjoys the legacy of the ancestors. The festive season heralds that spring is always there". Therefore, the Spring Festival is not a modern invention. 

CNY couplets are written on red paper, coincidentally similar to the Israelites who, on the night before they left Egypt, killed a lamb for each family and smeared its blood on the doorframes and lintels. The angel of death would pass over the houses with blood on the doors, sparing the firstborn of that household. This aligns with the meaning of "Chu Xi" (Chinese New Year's Eve). Interestingly, the word "bless" in Latin languages is etymologically related to "blood" or "shedding of blood." This easily reminds us of the Bible's words: "and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." (Hebrews 9:22)

Sin prevents people from receiving God's blessings. A philosopher once said, "An honest person only has to look into their own heart to know what sin is". The Bible says: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:23-24). "Justified" means that God considers a person to be "appropriate", having satisfied His criteria, and without deficiency.

No matter how many good deeds a person does, one can never achieve perfection, and each person knows this. God examines our thoughts, words, and actions. The distance between a person and God's perfect standard is vast and unbridgeable. The consequence of sin is destruction, but God is love and desires people to be blessed - "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16).

God sent His only beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to become human to take the place of humanity's sins. He was nailed to the cross, shedding His blood to die for us. After His death, He was buried and on the third day He rose from the grave and ascended to heaven. He will come again to judge the living and the dead, and only those who believe in Him will not be condemned, but will receive eternal life, becoming children of the Heavenly Father and living in God's house to enjoy eternal blessings.

You can believe in Him now and all your old debts of sin will be removed, letting you start a new era in life. Congratulations on welcoming the New Year with an abundance of blessings!