We are nearly there.

It feels like something new is coming -- even though only a few weeks into the twenty-first century it will seem like the same old hat.

But right now it's seems very new.

Because of our tie to computers, and the computer's tie to the designation of time, it gives the moment of transition from one century to another that feeling of "click" that is always lacking as we move from one year to another.

Time makes no noise, but this year the suspense at that midnight moment will be so loud we can hear it.

It may be a little harder for the TV preachers to scare people out of their money with their "end-time prophecy" and their predictions of Armageddon.

I guess some of them really do believe that God is a clock-watcher -- and they get to set the time.

We are the ones who reckon the time, who make a big deal of a new year, and who make computers in such a way that they give a kick to the beginning of a new century.

I can tell you what mine is: I plan to push the Gospel of Jesus Christ harder than I ever have before. I am going to tell more and more people that God loves them, and that the way to real life is through Jesus Christ.

I don't know exactly what will happen at midnight Friday, but I know where I plan to be come Sunday morning: in worship.

Listen -- I couldn't have made the twentieth century without Jesus Christ, and I don't plan to live without him in the twenty-first.

On the first Sunday of the new century I want to be in the Lord's house, giving the Lord thanks for the gift of both time and eternity.

I trust that you will do the same.

There's only one "first Sunday," you know. In years to come, let it be remembered that on that first Sunday you were in worship.

Start the century off right. Be in church somewhere this Sunday.

And oh yes! Happy New Year!