Dear BPCWA worshipper, This being the last day of the year, tonight is our Combined Watchnight Thanksgiving Service. Certainly, it will be a long day – beginning at 9 am for most of the English worshippers attending BBK or Sunday School. In the afternoon, we will have the Chinese Worship Service while several teams will also be ministering at the Nursing Homes. Finally, we will have our Watchnight Service at 7:30 pm and close off the year with prayer together after the Service. Even for a normal Lord’s Day, it would be a pretty full day for many. But isn’t being caught up in the Lord’s work till we usher in the New Year the best way to spend our time?

The world’s revellings on New Year’s Eve. As each activity finishes for today, what are your plans? There is much that is happening on New Year’s Eve too for the world. The world hosts parties in their homes or congregate in pubs and bars to end off the year’s festivities, often with drinking. Some families take this as an opportunity to eat together. We in Perth of course know that there will be fireworks at various locations around the city, some happening hours before midnight, others at the stroke of midnight. You could spend the night in awe watching the hours of fireworks. Television hosts around the world will be counting down the year together with variety shows to entertain the audiences before and after midnight. Then, there’s the Watchnight Service, with apparently little glamour or appeal compared to the world’s festivities. It is not like Christmas, where some are more willing to come because it is part of the “festive mood” to sing carols in church. It isn’t a Worship Service. In other years, one would say that it isn’t a sin to not attend Watchnight Service, unlike the Worship Service. Neither is it a particularly “Christian” day that marks or commemorates a key religious milestone like Good Friday, Easter, or Christmas. Perhaps many other churches don’t even have a service like this on New Year’s Eve. In your mind, you may be tempted to think “There’s no harm in skipping this. Why bother? After all, I’d already have ended off the year in church at the Worship Service earlier that day.” As you leave the church after Worship Service, will you be wishing each other “See you next year” or will it be “See you tonight”?

Our Watchnight Service. For those who have never attended our Watchnight Service, what happens there? Those who have been attending, let us not forget why we gather. Essentially, the Watchnight Service is similar to the Worship Service in many aspects, but with a different focus. It is called a Thanksgiving Service because as Christians, we give our thanks in grateful praise to God at the close of the year for His goodness and faithfulness to us as a church and individual throughout the year. We have the Lord’s Supper to renew and reconsecrate ourselves to our covenantal vows. Hence, the Word from God is preached to encourage us to live for Him in the year ahead. Come to listen with a heart resolved to be better for the Lord in 2024. The service is only but the first half of the night’s activities. After this, a brief session of fellowship over supper follows. Why do we serve supper? It is to sustain us in prayer through the rest of the night. We then regather to close off the night with a time of thanksgiving and prayer for the church and each other in pairs or small group prayer. We supplicate for the church, its ministries, and its worshippers.

Preparing for the Watchnight Service. Being a long day, let us be prepared for it to make the most out of it spiritually. The time of prayer is particularly blessed this year because New Year’s Eve falls on the Lord’s Day – a day for the Word, prayer, service, and glorifying God! As we have taught many times, the Lord’s Day is a day wholly given to the Lord, limited not only to the hours when Worship Service is conducted. Parents, build this routine into your children. Yes, it may be a longer night, but make them nap in the afternoon before coming for the Watchnight Service. I am sure children have stayed awake for longer at major family celebrations, whether it is for birthdays, during holiday trips, etc. And they probably would be awake to watch fireworks, if you have planned it into their schedules. How you will spend New Year’s Eve is, ultimately, a matter of the heart. After all, God has in His providence given those who work in the world a public holiday on the next day, New Year’s Day. 

Are we grateful? We read in the gospels the account where 10 lepers who due to their disease could not lead “normal lives” and were required to stand afar off from others. Seeing Christ, “they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (Lu 17:13). Christ had mercy upon them, “and when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed” (Lu 17:14). To be healed of leprosy was no small thing. Leprosy was a disease with no known cure, akin to our spiritual disease of sin. Because it was contagious, lepers were excluded from society at large. In this account, we see Christ healing all of them of their malady. As with all of Christ’s miracles, there was a 100% success rate and all 10 were perfectly healed. It was certainly not due in any part to the faith or faithfulness of the lepers themselves, because of the sad commentary that God leaves for us to learn from of what follows their healing. “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. 17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?” (Lu 17:15-17). Ten were delivered by God’s mercies. Not through any good that they had done, for they hadn’t even yet reached the priests. Only one returned to thank Christ for what He had done. Surely this must reawaken our hearts. We sometimes start off the year with some trepidation for the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Many things and events throughout the year fill our hearts with fear. In realising our weaknesses, we cry to God for help for ourselves, our children, our loved ones, our families, and the church. God answers, our prayers and supplications cease, we carry on with our lives . . . and most sadly, we like the other 9 lepers forget after that that it was God that helped. This account makes me think of one Watchnight Service where the church had not filled up. Looking around at the sparse church hall, an elderly gentleman sadly remarked that the people had not come because they had no gratefulness to God in their hearts. He had a simple faith and was definitely no theologian. Yet, he understood a most important fact – that the year-end service was a time when God’s people gathered to give thanks to God for His keeping through the year. He was there not because others were, but simply out of a grateful heart to his Lord. He will not be at our Watchnight Service this year, but I’m sure he never regretted the many years that he attended to thank and give glory to God for His mercies. While God sustains you, will you not come? Giving thanks to God is to glorify Him. As Christ looks down from His throne of glory today, may He not say of many in BPCWA that

“There are not found that returned to give glory to God . . .”  (Lu 17:18)

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor