Ed, my old neighbour from Saskatchewan, made one major prediction last year that turned out to be true. He predicted Donald Trump would win the election and become president of the United States. Now he is certain his prophecies for 2017 will be even more on the money. Ed claims many are coming to their New Year’s Eve party to hear how this coming year will shape up. Ed wants to have another year when he can brag, "I told you so. See, it happened, just as I said it would.”
My old neighbour insisted on sending me a list of his 2017 predictions in his Christmas card. It begins with a weather forecast for the year ahead for Saskatchewan: winter - long frigid and lots of snow; spring - cool and wet; summer - hot with a bad drought; fall - also dry.
According, to Ed there will be a total solar eclipse Aug. 21 across the United States that will cause their stock markets to slump.
Nationally, Canada will be 150 years old, the Canadian Senate will be replaced with a computer and there will be no more pensions for senators. The money saved will mean a refund to every living Canadian of a $1.50 every July for the next century.
About May 24, Canadian peacekeeping troops could be asked to keep the peace in the United States. The prediction is there will be fighting among those building a wall on the border of Mexico and those who are tearing it down.
Last, of all Ed is predicting the collapse of the European Union with economic chaos there. I regret his predictions have little to look forward to, but thankfully, the future is in God’s hands and not in Ed’s prophecies.
Every Jan.1 we face a new year with uncertainty. There is no recipe for the coming year to guarantee it bakes up into something delicious and memorable. Any day of any year, things can go wrong instead of right. Each year brings more than its share of the unsettling things that seem shocking and questionable. In 2017, it is predicted an Italian neurosurgeon will perform the first human head transplant. It isn't that I couldn't use a new head some days, but it would not go with my old body.
For centuries Christians, have celebrated on Jan. 1, the circumcision of Jesus and his naming. Jewish law holds that males should be circumcised eight days after birth in a ceremony, at which time they are also given their name. Luke speaks of it this way, “And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”
Christians have recognized the circumcision of Jesus as a link forward from his birth to the reason for his being among us. His circumcision was the first time Jesus’ blood was shed on Earth. It points to the cross and his blood shed there for humanity's sin. His circumcision demonstrated that Jesus was fully human. He came not to abolish the law, but fulfill it. Mary and Joseph gave the name Jesus to their baby, the name above every name. The name for every year, especially 2017.
