Happy New Year: 'Behold, I Make All Things New'

As we cross from 2008 to 2009 let us make our first resolution to behold His face, wounded by love, as his mother did.

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - The one who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." (Revelation 21:5). Those words hold out the promise of the Gospel to all men and women. They were spoken to the beloved disciple John on the Island of Patmos in a vision of the new heaven and new earth where the completion of the Redemption of Jesus Christ will be fully manifested. They are recorded for all to read at the end of the New Testament in the Book of Revelation, or the "Apocalypse". This promise addresses the heart cry of the entire human race. It answers our deepest longing. At this time of the year, when we end one year and begin a new one, we are drawn to deep reflection. We seem compelled to make resolutions to change our lives. How deeply we want to begin again, to be made new.

There is Good News! We can!

These words took on new meaning for me years ago when I watched a powerful scene in the Mel Gibson masterpiece, "The Passion of the Christ". In it Mary, the Mother of the Lord, runs to her wounded Son who has fallen for the third time from the weight of the Cross. There is a flash back to an earlier day when that same son, as a child, is seen playing in the dusty streets of Nazareth and is about to fall. With the tender love of a mother, Mary reaches out to her Son. Then the viewer sees her hand touch the wounded face of the Adult Son and Savior who looks at her, and through words addressed to her He speaks to every human person - from the beginning of time until the end - saying: "Behold, I make all things new."

I had the privilege of viewing this extraordinary film for the first time in a private showing in Washington D.C. before it was released. Mel Gibson was present. The theatre, owned by the Motion Pictures Association of America, was filled with Washington "movers and shakers." Each of them had been glad-handing and talking through one another in the way that Washington insiders do, at least that is before the film began. They were different people by the time it was over. By the end of this movie, there was not a dry eye in the place. However, of all the scenes, it was that encounter between mother and Son that grabbed me and shook me to tears. They were tears of sorrow and joy co-mingled. It was so human and full of promise and hope. The wounds on the Savior's sacred head, that had in the earlier scenes seemed so brutal, painful and hard to view, seemed to, almost in an instant, become beautiful. It all became clear in that compelling scene that they were wounds of love, freely embraced by Jesus to "make all things new" for the entire human race. Our freedom has been fractured by our sin. The Cross is the splint which heals the fracture.

I stayed in the theatre afterwards to comment on the film for Mel Gibson and his team. The group included Mel Gibson and several "notables" from Washington D.C. It was in that small informal gathering that a once very influential political figure, a dedicated evangelical Christian, made an intriguing comment: "Mel, that film was so faithful to the biblical text, except for one scene." "Which one" asked Gibson? "When Jesus meets his mother and says "Behold, I make all things new", he continued "that is not in the Gospel account". Immediately I strongly disagreed. "To the contrary", I said "that scene summarizes the very meaning of the Gospel, and in fact is profoundly theological. It takes the words of Jesus from the Book of Revelation and positions them right within His redemptive offering of Himself in his Suffering, Passion and Death. It was one of the most powerful moments of the film!" I insisted. "Good" said Gibson "I wasn't going to change it anyway."

As we repent for the failures of the past year, reflect on the gifts it brought and resolve to "be better" in the coming year, we are confronted with the reality of our human condition. We know that our resolutions to change often end in failure. We are prone to making wrong choices in daily life. We sin. Classical theology speaks of this inclination as "concupiscence". The Apostle Paul wrote about this experience to the early Christians in Rome in the seventh chapter of his letter: "For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me... Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Our freedom is a reflection of the Image of God within us. It was fractured by the effects of the first sin. Our ability to exercise it properly by choosing the good has been undermined. In the words of the late servant of God John Paul II ("The Splendor of Truth") "freedom itself needs to be set free." Through the Incarnation, Saving Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus we are capacitated to live our lives differently. When we do, he makes "all things new!" As we cross from 2008 to 2009 let us make our first resolution to behold His face, wounded by love, as his mother did. Let us choose to walk through 2009 allowing the Savior to take up residence in our hearts and in our homes. For the Christian, time has purpose. It is a part of a loving plan of a timeless God who, in His Son, the Timeless One, came into time in order to transform it from within. We have been made a part of His ongoing redemptive plan for the entire cosmos through His Church. Time is the field in which this loving plan proceeds.

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Human beings mark time by significant events. The question is not whether we will mark time but how. What message are we proclaiming in the process of our calendaring of time? The Christian understanding of time as having a redemptive purpose is why we mark time by the great events of the faith. On the first day of the New Year we celebrate the Feast of the Mother of God. This is no accident. She who beheld the face of the Savior invites us to hear the words of Jesus Christ, "Behold I make all things new!"

Happy New Year!

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