Sirach 51:1-12; Ps 96; Eph 1:3-6;11-12; Lk 17:11-19

My dearly beloved people of God, it is right and just to assembled in a church this eve of 2024 new year to praise and thank God for the past year 2023 and to asked God for Good luck entering into a new year 2024. In a night like this, when we will soon pass over from the year 2023 to 2024, we are encouraged to look back into the past and access ourselves and then look forward to the future with hope that we will do well.

We should be strong and fearless like a Lion who looks back to see the distance he has covered and continues with more courage. Tonight is the night we ought to confidently look back to see how much distance we have covered and to look to the future with the help of God. A celebrative night like this, we have to make new resolutions, a night we try to renew our commitments to be better people summing into another new year.

Tonight is not the night to make only wishes but to resolve to rise above the mistakes of the year 2023 and step into 2024 with much more confidence that, being guided by the light of Christ, favour will fall our way.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is an example of a truly resolved person; she resolved to give herself to God and said; “let it be done to me according to your word’. She resolved to surrender herself; she did to the end. All her life, she treasured the word of God in her heart and held onto the power of his presence with great faith. We need such a strong faith as we step into the new year to begin another 365 days journey of faith. The end of each year marks the beginning of another, it is a journey of faith.

It was a journey of faith, Abraham did not know where he was going when he was called out of his comfort zone, out of his very familiar territory, out of his father’s house and out of his country to an unknown destination.

Abraham started the journey with faith because the Lord had said to him, I will show you the land, and so, the Lord was his shepherd. Like Abraham, we must let the Lord lead the way; we must let him be our shepherd.

Like the Psalmist, we have to believe that; “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters; even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me” (Ps 23:1-284).

Obviously, we not know what the year 2024 holds for us, but the Lord is promising you and I tonight just like the way He ever promised to Abraham; “I will show you the way.” He will lead us through. The road may not be smooth, it may be a rough road, a winding road. it may be a sloppy or a hilly road, but the hope is that, wherever he leads us, we follow because, he will be our protector and our comfort.

Do not be afraid, dear friends, to step into the new year 2024. The world may fight against you but the world will not prevail against you because the Lord is your shepherd. Tonight, let us look back into the year 2023 like the Lion that stops to look back, to look back, not in fear. But to look back into 2023, not minding how bad it was, but be more focus on 2024, that your steps may be guided with the abundance of God’s grace.

Conclusion: Dearly favored in Christ, like the Apostles handed the five loaves and two fish to Jesus for the miracle of multiplication of bread and fish, let us also hand over the year 2024 to the Lord tonight for a blessing, so that, its fortunes may be numerous. May our hearts be lifted in praise and thanksgiving for the gift of this year 2024.