“A magic dwells in each beginning, protecting us, telling us how to live.” – from Stufen, by Hermann Hesse, 1877–1962

Time is an interesting concept. Have you ever thought about what time is and how we measure it? There are certain movements in our solar system we use for measuring time, one revolution of the Earth makes a day, the Moon basically marks a month with its phases, and the time it takes the Earth to circle the Sun makes a year.

Men found ways to measure and count time as if it was something definite. However, Albert Einstein, in his theory of relativity, found out that time is not as fixed as we think.

The clocks in the satellites above us have to be adjusted constantly to make sure they are synchronised with time on Earth. Otherwise our GPS would not work correctly. If something would travel with the speed of light, no time would pass for that something at all. Even a thousand years would just be an instant.

That reminds me of some Biblical verses. For example, 2 Peter 3:8, in line with Psalm 90, 4, reads: “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (New International Version)

Even personally it seems to me that a year is shorter and shorter the older I get. How long did I have to wait as a six-year-old for my next birthday or Christmas (one sixth of my life) and now a year passes so fast (now it is just one sixtieth of my life, thus it feels ten times shorter).

The year 2024 is coming to an end and 2025 is ahead of us like a new and empty page, fresh and untainted. What will come our way and what will it bring? Do you recall how 2024 started? Do you make new year’s resolutions? Are you optimistic or less optimistic about the near future? Do things actually change with counting another year?

Our western new year date is actually quite arbitrary. Other cultures have their own calendar and thus their own date for New Year’s Day, and some are at least in sync with certain events like the spring equinox or Moon phases.

Around 40 calendars are still in use today, but the main calendars used around the world are the Gregorian (western calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII), Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Chinese, Julian (eastern Europe, named after Julius Caesar who combined the Egyptian solar calendar and the Roman calendar and invented in 46 BC the leap year every four years), and Persian calendars.

Russia for example still follows the Julian calendar because the Orthodox Church does not recognise the Pope. So when Gregory XIII wanted to synchronise the calendar again with the equinox (astronomers had found out that a solar year is 365.2422 days long and not 365.25 as in the Julian calendar) to find the correct dates for Easter every year (First Sunday after the first full moon in spring). Thus he skipped ten days in the Julian calendar in 1582. 442 years later the Julian calendar is even 13 days behind us (in 2100 it will be 14 days), thus Christmas is still to come in Russia on January 6 on our calendar, and the October Revolution actually took place in September in Russia).

The Jewish, Chinese and Hindu calendars follow both Sun and Moon, and the Islamic calendar just follows the Moon phases and a year is only 354 or 355 days long. Of course the years are counted differently in those cultures and the new year begins at a different date as well.

Still, I think it is good to have a date, just to stop and think. We need those moments to come to a hold and think, look back at the past and plan for the future.

For us it will be new year, with lots of toasting, some fireworks, and resolutions. In a way a new year is a chance for a new beginning. We can set new goals, have those new year’s resolutions to become a better version of ourselves, trying to change old habits or start new ones. It is a time to dream a new dream and hopefully act on it: it might be an opportunity.

While the new year is not a Christian holiday, the idea of a new beginning, a fresh start with a clean slate is very Christian. We believe that in Christ we receive forgiveness and thus get a new start.

A symbol for this new beginning is our baptism. Just as Christ at the beginning of his ministry went to John the Baptist at the Jordan River to get baptised, our baptism symbolises God’s promise of a new beginning. The Apostle Paul writes in his Second Letter to the Corinthians 5:17 (New Revised Standard Version): “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

When the Apostles addressed the people on Pentecost in Jerusalem, “Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38 NRSV).

And there are several similar verses in the New Testament. The good news is, we actually can change. We can begin anew again. We are not fixed. We can truly open a new page. One page at a time.

Modern brain science found in the last 20 years that we actually can even change the wiring of our brains in a process called neuroplasticity. What we feed will grow. We can change the patterns of our thinking and create new brain connections that might help us heal and overcome even many physical problems. But it takes an active willingness to start anew.

In How to Overcome Fear, Marcos Witt writes: “When we think about facing tomorrow, it’s indispensable that we dream. There is no future if we do not dream.” (page 172)

And then, he says, action has to follow. Great ideas only turn into great outcomes when we act on them.

So the new year can be a chance to dream dreams. For that we do not need fortune tellers or horoscopes. I think it is important to hold on to hope with both hands and stretching high to the heavens because while there are so many factors beyond our control on the world stage, we can do a lot in our places.

We can make a difference right where we are. We can make the world around us more loving, more accepting, more helpful.

Have a blessed new year, Bermuda.

• Karsten Decker is a German theologian with a double degree equivalent to an MTheol and MDiv. He studied in Marburg (Germany), Knoxville (USA), and Toronto (Canada) and comes from a united church of Lutheran and Reformed Churches. He was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary Untied Methodist Church in Smith’s