What is your New Year’s resolution looking like for 2026? Before we get too serious, here are a few jokes about the resolutions we might struggle to keep often.
‘Consider taking up a new hobby such as procrastination. Or maybe later.’
‘Read the Bible regularly and realize it is full of wine.’
‘Stop worrying when I’m asleep.’
‘A lot of people are exercising for their New Year’s resolution. But right now, I’m watching a show I don’t like. Why? Because the remote fell on the floor.’
Statistics tell us that while millions make New Year’s resolutions, only 7 percent actually cross the finish line. Even more shocking, medical studies have shown that even those with terminal cancer are not good at keeping their new year resolutions. Only 1 in 9 of them finds the will to change their life habits.
Have you ever been driving somewhere familiar, following your GPS, when suddenly the screen flashes: ‘New Route Suggested’? Usually, we ignore it. We like the way we know.
Humans are a species of the ‘old way.’ Knowing the right way isn’t enough. Even fearing death isn’t always enough. We need something more powerful than a resolution; we need a transformation from inside —the kind of change that only happens when we encounter the divinity. That’s exactly what happened to the Magi, the wise men from the east in today’s gospel reading.
According to the church calendar, today is the second Sunday of Christmas. This means, we’re still in the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus as a church. That’s why today’s gospel reading still talks about the Magi visiting Joseph and Mary to celebrate Jesus’ birth.
More specific, it’s their return journey after witnessing the Birth that matters to the theme today. But in the shadows of the very first Christmas, a deadly game of hide-and-seek was being played.
This is the stage I’d like to set for today’s reflection. Conclusively, it highlights the tension between the world’s deception and God’s direction. It stresses the conflict between the logic of the world and the logic of faith.
With that said, here is some brief introduction for you to keep in mind. King Herod was so obsessed with keeping his power. He even killed his own wife and sons for his obsession with the power. And Herod called the Wise Men to a secret meeting and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
It sounded like a request for a map, but it was actually a death warrant. Herod didn’t want to bow; he wanted to eliminate anyone or anything that stood in his way.
The wise men followed a star to a small house in Bethlehem. They arrived with a specific plan and a specific return route mapped out in their minds. But after they knelt before the Christ child, the ‘GPS’ of their souls recalculated.
They made a decision that changed the course of history forever. They turned their backs on the palace and bypassed the old road. The reading today tells us they went home ‘by another way’.
Friends, this is perhaps the best New Year’s resolution of all: when you encounter Christ, you don’t go back the way you came.
Even if you try hard to maintain your old life, you eventually realize that God is the one preventing you from returning to your old ways. It can be frustrating and disappointing to realize there is no turning back, especially when those old paths were so familiar for so many years.
Moving into a new way of life and relationship can feel like wandering through a wilderness since many people try hard to avoid that kind of wilderness journey.
For years, the great writer C.S. Lewis was a stubborn atheist. He was a man of cold logic and intellectual pride. He was perfectly comfortable on the ‘Old Way’. He used to claim that Christianity was nothing more than a fairy tale. He had his life all mapped out all by himself, and God was nowhere on that map.
But then, one day he encountered the Truth. He came to Christ because the evidence of the Gospel made his old way of living impossible. He didn’t necessarily want to change his route, but once he met the King, he realized he could never go back to the person he used to be.
He didn’t just add a little bit of Jesus to his old life. He changed his entire direction based on the Christ he found.
Because C.S. Lewis refused to return to the old way of his past—because he chose ‘Another Way’—the world saw one of the most powerful Christian novels, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity’. His detour became a road of hope for millions.
As you stand at the beginning of 2026, you might feel like the Magi or like C.S. Lewis. You might be comfortable on your old road. But I invite you to look at the King. Once you see Him, you don’t go back to Herod. You don’t go back to the old life or the old fears.
That is St. Paul’s conviction described in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new person. The old has gone, the new has come!” This shows us that we cannot go back to the way we used to be. While we are still the same human beings, we can no longer return to our old way of life.
In God’s eyes, trying to return to that old life is a sin. Jesus makes this clear in Luke chapter 9. “Anyone who starts to plow and then keeps looking back is of no use for the Kingdom of God.”
This morning, we aren’t just talking about a different road on a map. We are talking about the moment an encounter with Jesus makes your old life—your old habits, and your old priorities—completely impassable. Once you see the King, the ‘old way’ simply no longer exists.
As we start this new year, I have a question for you: Once you truly encounter Him, will you retreat to the ‘Herods’ of your past—the lies, the ego, and your old habits? Or are you ready to take the detour that leads to a new and true life?
Choose the ‘Another Way’ of grace. Choose the ‘Another Way’ of peace. Choose the logic of faith. And watch how God uses your new journey to change the world around you.”
Closing prayer:
“Lord, we thank You that You do not leave us where You find us.
As we step into 2026, give us the courage to take the ‘other way.’ When the world expects us to return to anger, help us take the way of peace. When our culture expects us to return to greed, help us take the way of generosity. May the detour we take this year lead us closer to Your Kingdom life. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
