New Year: Who Will I Be?
Yesterday I put away the last of the Christmas decorations. I like to leave at least a few things up until Epiphany, but now we are clearly into 2026. It’s funny how fast we move on from things, isn’t it? By the time you read this, all the anticipation of Advent, moving towards Christmas, then to the end of the year and the beginning of a new one…will be a distant memory. It’s almost a little too quick for me. I’m not much on resolutions these days, but I do find the end of a 52-week year and beginning of another a great time to reflect and think. I like to total up the year just past, though some of that is done for me: credit card companies send the year’s expenditures broken into categories, Spotify issues a summary on my music listening habits for the year. I total up my running and biking miles (or Strava does) and peruse the list of books I read. It’s all sort of fascinating, and to some extent describes not just my habits but my priorities.
And yet…all that falls sort of flat, and New Year’s is a good time to think about why. I don’t want to focus so much on what I’m going to do (activity) in 2026…as on who I’m going to be (character). It’s that second question that interests me–who am I going to be? That’s what will drive much of what I do. And the person I want to be is someone following Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. It sounds simple, but of course it isn’t.
2026 promises to be a very challenging year in our nation, and the first couple of weeks certainly attest to that. The news has been full of verbs like seize, take, control, deport, force, strike, destroy, cripple, target, dominate. Never have the words of Steward Udall, a congressman from Utah and Secretary of the Interior in the 1960’s, been so appropriate: “We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.” If power is the ability to control others or impose one’s will or agenda through force or threat, then it has very little to do with a Jesus-follower. If greatness is about excellence and inspiration, improving our world and serving others, it has everything to do with our faith. Both power and greatness can be used well or poorly, but it seems that ultimately greatness has far more purpose and endurance. It’s when we confuse the two, and it’s happening with increasing frequency in both culture and Church, that we end up hurting people and stepping away from the gospel.
I was struck recently by a couple of verses in Isaiah 42, one of the four Servant Songs in Isaiah that we believe are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The gospel writer Matthew fully affirms this in 12:17-21. The Servant Songs show a very different picture of God’s Messiah than is being promoted currently. It’s very popular in some circles right now to theoretically “reclaim” Jesus. The feeling is that Jesus has been portrayed as meek or mild for too long, and what we really need to do is get back to a muscular, militant, power-wielding kind of Jesus. The problem is, THAT picture isn’t in scripture. The Servant in Isaiah will look and sound different, radically different than other leaders: “He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets (Isaiah 42:2).” What?! Any student of leadership today knows that effective leaders must gain attention, whether in politics or the church. They must get media appeal–big Instagram numbers, TikTok presence, write a book, manage a massive text and email list, make inflammatory comments. It’s all about impact. You have to be noticed. That’s how you get power.
But this Servant won’t need to lift up his voice. Unlike leaders who bully and threaten and shout, this one will be content with his character and actions speaking louder than his voice. Part of the greatness of Jesus was that he spent so much of his life in backwater villages, with the wrong kind of people, teaching them how to live instead of campaigning. Jesus will rule in believers’ hearts, and believers will then work to make him known on the earth.
“A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not snuff out (Isaiah 42:3).” Reeds that have been bent are worthless, and a dimly burning wick means the candle is going out but…the Messiah does not quench it. He does not lead by coercion, and indeed will count those who are weak, those who are broken as priorities. They will not be discarded. Nothing, no person is useless. No one is too far gone. The Servant’s task is not about gathering the strong or maintaining power, but “He will faithfully bring forth justice (Isaiah 42:3).” My translation: “he will set things right.”
Following Jesus in 2026 will require courage, and a willingness to swim upstream against other forces…which can be costly. That has always been true, but these are our times and our challenges. The call to be people of integrity is tested at every turn.
The Irish author Clarie Keegan wrote an amazing short novel a few years ago called Small Things Like These. It’s a hard story, actually, of a small town in Ireland with a religious convent that takes in girls in hardship, especially teenagers who are pregnant...but once there, they are often locked up or terribly mistreated and forced to provide slave labor (the infamous “Magdalene Laundries”). The townspeople have known it was a dark place for years, but no one is willing to confront the truth and be ostracized or worse. Finally, a local coal merchant named Bill Furlong, in his busiest time leading up to Christmas, stumbles upon the situation in-person when he discovers one of the girls. He realizes that he has been part of the silence, and when confronted with it directly...what will he do? I won’t spoil it, but here’s one of his thoughts as he walked along: “Is it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there…and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?”
Is it possible? It happens all the time when we glorify power rather than the greatness of Jesus. It’s a new year…who will we be?
Peace of Christ,
Dan Baumgartner
Dan Baumgartner is the senior pastor at The Cove in Santa Rosa CA and currently serves on The Fellowship Community Board.
These are the expressed views of Dan Baumgartner and not necessarily broader views of The Fellowship Community.