05 Jan Making it an “Anno Domini”

Happy New Year

Now that the holiday season has come and (mostly) gone, we do get to turn our attention to this thing called “The New Year”, 2024 A.D.

A.D. stands for the Latin phrase, anno Domini, “in the year of our Lord,” and has come to refer to the number of years since the birth of Jesus estimated by the Gregorian and Julian calendar systems. (Most of the world, including the U.S., uses the Gregorian calendar. It was introduced in 1582 and named after Pope Gregory the XIII, as a way of more accurately tracking the year and seasons, and created by shortening the length of a leap year.)

But, the main idea was to name the year as being “of our Lord”, or to use the older phrase, “of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Without getting into whether or not the dates are accurate or how culture at large feels about this designation, the better conversation to have, I think is this: How can we, as Christian people, truly make this year a “year of our Lord”?

That is, how can we live this year in light of His birth and first coming, as we just celebrated at Christmas?

There are a number of ways, for sure, but the way I have found that has most helped me to live in that way is through the creation of holy habits, or spiritual disciplines…and of course, fasting is one of those.

So, allow me to encourage you to participate in Mosaic’s annual five-day fast beginning on January 8. By starting the year off in this way, it helps to shape the year as one being “of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We do this in concert with our global Every Nation spiritual family, and we have fasting guides, daily prayer meetings, and a big worship night (plus one specifically for 1st-5th graders in mKids) to close it out on Friday, January 12 from 7-8 pm. (Get details here!)

Every year, powerful things happen as we practice a temporary bit of self-denial and lean into creating a space that God can fill.

Together, we really can make 2024 (a leap year) the year of our Lord, as far as it concerns us.

I’ll see you this Sunday, as we are back in person, for a special message to kick off the new year.

See you then!

Morgan