What are your plans for tonight? Will you glam up and attend a party or get into comfy pajamas and watch the ball drop from Times Square? I am an advocate for the latter. When my mother was in an Assisted Living facility we would spend New Year’s Eve with her. That place did it right. At 4:00 in the afternoon they reset all the public clocks to 11:00 p.m. and we gathered in the common room for the countdown to “midnight.” We shared a festive toast as the clock struck 12:00 and then everyone rolled back to their rooms for the rest of the night. Perfection! But my preference on New Year’s Eve is to attend a Watch Night service if I can find one.

The tradition of Watch Night can be traced to the early 18th century in Moravian churches, when churchgoers began marking the occasion with a worship service of prayer, proclamation, and singing to reflect upon the year past and to contemplate the one to come. Our own John Wesley adopted the practice for his  Methodist followers. Wesley believed that Methodists and all Christians should reaffirm their covenant with God annually, so he created a service in which an individual renews his/her covenant with God.

In 1755 Wesley held his first covenant service using words written earlier by Richard Alleine. Wesley published this service in a pamphlet in 1780, and this form was used without alteration for nearly a century in England. It has been modified somewhat in more recent years.

The covenant hymn, “Come, Let Us Use the Grace Divine,” was written for this service by Charles Wesley. The service is included in The Book of Worship under the title “An Order of Worship for Such as Would Enter Into or Renew Their Covenant with God–For Use in a Watch Night Service, on the First Sunday of the Year, or Other Occasion.” (from umc.org)

Watch Night was given new significance among African Americans on December 31, 1862, when, according to tradition, slaves in the Confederate states gathered in churches and private homes on the night before U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was expected to go into effect, pending his signing of the document. The soon-to-be-free slaves stayed awake all night and watched the night turn into a new dawn while waiting for news that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued, thus making all the slaves legally free.

I hope you consider a Watch Night service if one is available to you or find one online. Marking this night with prayers, a good sermon, meditation, hymns, and quiet reflection is far preferable to any party or gathering you might be considering. And the hang-over is much better in the morning.

Psalm 63 (New International Version)

You, God, are my God,
    earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
    my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
    where there is no water.

² I have seen you in the sanctuary
    and beheld your power and your glory.
³ Because your love is better than life,
    my lips will glorify you.
⁴ I will praise you as long as I live,
    and in your name I will lift up my hands.
⁵ I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
    with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

⁶ On my bed I remember you;
    I think of you through the watches of the night.

The Watches of the Night by Michelle Robertson