It's Time to Be Two-Faced

New Year’s Day is an odd little holiday. For most of us, it’s mostly an opportunity to stay up late and have a party. Or, it’s a bookend to the holiday week that begins on Christmas. But the meaning of the holiday itself is pretty trivial: time to buy a new calendar and remember to date your checks with a different year. Perhaps you’ll use it as an opportunity to change something in your life by making a new year’s resolution. This year I’d like to suggest that you try something different. And for inspiration, I’d like to suggest that you consider a pagan god, of all things.

Usually, being called two-faced is an insult. But Roman mythology included a two-faced god named Janus; our month of January is named after him. For the Romans, Janus was the god of gateways, doors, beginnings and endings. He was depicted as having two faces, looking in opposite directions, so that he could see both what was in front of him and what was behind him. If you’ve wished that you could have eyes in the back of your head, then you can understand the advantage that Janus had. If he was guarding the gate, he could see people coming from both directions.

The Romans’ consideration of Janus extended beyond the literal, physical, practical aspect of having a guardian god that you could never sneak up on. Janus was also understood to be the god for times of transition: when something ends and something else begins. Metaphorically, he could look back upon the past, but also look to the future.

As you change your calendar and practice writing 2011 instead of 2010, I invite you to be two-faced. First, spend some time reflecting on what happened in the past year. Remember what God has done in your life. How has He changed you? What wonders have you been able to experience? What challenges has God brought you through? What has God taught you in 2010? And second, think about what 2011 will be for you. We of course have no idea what surprises and changes are in store for us. But we should be watching for the new things that God will do, so that we can respond to them with faith. We can prepare ourselves to participate in the unfolding of His plan that we will see in 2011.

Our God is not named Janus. But our Lord urges us both to remember what He has done (Deuteronomy 6:10-12, for example), and to watch in expectation for what He will do (Revelation 21:1-5, for example).

Happy New Year!

Peter