Watchnight Parties

This post is being made at 9:00 a.m. CST in the U.S., but in Japan (where I long lived), it is midnight and the beginning of a new year according to the now-standard “Western calendar.”* According to the Japanese calendar, though, this is the beginning of Reiwa 8, the 8^th year of the current emperor on the Chrysanthemum Throne. 

In Japan, the new year is celebrated mostly after midnight. Many Japanese people make a hatsumōde (初詣、“first shrine or temple visit of the New Year”) after midnight on December 31, although many wait until daybreak on January 1, as seeing the sunrise in the new year is considered quite meaningful.

Years in Japan are traditionally viewed as completely separate, with each new year providing a fresh start. Consequently, all duties are supposed to be completed by the end of the year, while bōnenkai (忘年会、“year forgetting parties”) are often held in December with the purpose of leaving the old year’s worries and troubles behind.

In large Japanese cities, most younger Japanese people celebrate New Year’s Eve much the same as young people in USAmerican cities. Traditional (and especially rural) families, though, spend the evening at home for a relaxed family meal, watching TV specials, and participating in rituals to welcome the new year.

So, for most people in Japan, there are not watchnight parties such as most of us older people in the U.S. remember—and perhaps many still participate in, although it has been a very long time since I stayed up until midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Religious watchnight parties first became common in the U.S. among Methodists. In 1727, the Moravian Church was formed in Herrnhut, a village on the estate of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf in Saxony, Germany.

Watchnight services originated in Moravian communities around 1733 in what is now the Czech Republic, where believers held three-hour vigils on New Year's Eve, often preceded by a love feast, to reflect on the year, pray, and prepare for the future. 

John Wesley encountered a Moravian watchnight service on New Year’s Eve 1738, describing a powerful spiritual experience that influenced his ministry. By 1740, he formalized it for Methodists as “Covenant Renewal Services,” featuring singing, prayers, scripture, and communion held on New Year’s Eve as a godly alternative to drunken celebrations.

Consequently, watchnight services spread widely among Methodists in Britain and then in North America as a New Year’s Eve religious observance. As Christianity moved westward, Methodists and Baptists were the primary Protestant denominations, and Baptists didn’t have watchnight services for quite some time, as they were considered too “Methodistic.”

Gradually, though, more and more Baptist churches began to have watchnight services, and as a Baptist boy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I remember participating in such church gatherings on New Year’s Eve. Then, in my early years as a pastor, and later even in Japan, I led and enjoyed meaningful watchnight services.

Black Christians held a meaningful watchnight service on December 31, 1862.** On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered, many in secret, to ring in the new year and await news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. 

On September 22, President Lincoln had issued an executive order, declaring that enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate States were legally free. However, the decree would not take effect until the clock struck midnight at the start of the new year. Thus, that New Year’s Eve, came to be known as “Watch Night” or “Freedom's Eve.”

According to Perplexity AI, many Black churches today hold watchnight services, reflecting on slavery's history and emancipation. Sermons often recount the 1862 gatherings, framing the night as  “Freedom's Eve” while blending it with broader themes of hope and justice.

Initially meant to welcome emancipation, the watchnight services now encourage reflection on the history of slavery and freedom, as well as reflection on the past year—both its trials and triumphs—while also anticipating what the new year will have in store. It is a continuation of generations of faith that freedom and renewal lie ahead.

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  * In November 1872, the Japanese government decreed that the old calendar, derived from Chinese models, would be replaced by the Gregorian calendar.​ Under that reform, the day after December 2, 1872 (lunisolar), was designated January 1, 1873. Thus, since 1873, the official Japanese New Year has been celebrated on January 1, rather than on the variable late-January/February date of the old lunisolar year.​

** This section is based on “The Historical Legacy of Watch Night” as found at this website: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-watch-night. Much of the same content is found in What does Watch Night mean for Black Americans today? It dates back to the Emancipation Proclamation, posted by Religious News Service on January 1, 2024.

In Admiration of John Wesley and Methodism

Three hundred years ago, in 1725, John Wesley was ordained as a minister. Hardly anyone has been more instrumental in the spread of the Christian faith than Wesley. 

(John Wesley, c.1766)

Early on a February morning when John was five years old, a fire broke out in the rectory. All the large family except John, who was sleeping on the top floor, were able to flee to safety, and they all thought the boy had perished in the fire. But he was “miraculously” saved by escaping through a window.

John never forgot the significance of that event and not long before he died in 1791, he penned a statement he thought would be fitting for his grave marker. It began, “Here lieth the Body of John Wesley, A Brand plucked out of the burning.”*¹

The first chapter of a recent book about “John Wesley, the fearless evangelist,” begins with an account of that February 1709 fire. In the concluding paragraph of that chapter, the author writes,

In that nearly tragic event from his childhood, he saw a providential deliverance and the call on his life to help deliver those who would otherwise be engulfed in the spiritual flames of the wrath of God to come.*²

Wesley graduated from Christ Church, Oxford University in 1724. Then following in his father’s footsteps, at the age of 22 he was ordained as a minister in the Church of England in October 1725.

After his ordination, John wrote in his diary, “Leisure and I have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live.” And busy he was! During his lifetime, Wesley is said to have ridden 250,000 miles on horseback and to have preached over 40,000 sermons!

The most important event in Wesley’s spiritual life occurred on May 24, 1738, a month before his 35^th birthday. This was not long after he had returned to England with a strong sense of failure. In October 1735, he and his younger brother Charles had embarked as missionaries to the colony of Georgia.

Wesley was deeply impressed by the faith of the Moravian missionaries he met aboard the ships both going and returning from the “new world.” In contrast to the terror he felt when strong storms threatened the ships, the Moravian Christians were calmly singing hymns.*³

Back in England, Wesley sought out the Moravian Christian community on Aldersgate Street in London and went to one of their services on the evening of May 24. There he felt his heart “strangely warmed,” and that was the beginning of a “new” John Wesley.

Shortly thereafter, Wesley returned to Oxford and delivered a sermon titled "Salvation by Faith," based on Ephesians 2:8: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God" (NKJV).

Wesley’s preaching about salvation by faith alone was not well received by the Church of England (CoE). He soon experienced considerable opposition, especially after he began “field preaching” in 1739. The latter was preaching outside rather than in a “proper” CoE church building.

Wesley began to form small Methodist groups across England, but he never broke with the CoE. However, in 1784 the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in the U.S. by Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, and from the 1820s until 1967, Methodism was the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.

For 240 years now, Methodism has had significant positive impact on the U.S. and countries around the world. It has been a leading force in evangelism by fueling religious revival and emphasizing personal faith and salvation.

Methodists in the U.S. have also been in the forefront of social reform, being deeply involved in social justice movements, including abolitionism, temperance, and women's rights.

According to their website (see here), the United Methodist Church is now

… a worldwide connection of about 10 million members in more than100 countries including Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States. United Methodists are people of God who share a common mission and values. The church and its members are called to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Thank God for all the good done by John Wesley and Methodism!

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*¹ These words come from Zechariah 3:2 in the Old Testament. A more contemporary English translation renders these words as “a burning stick snatched from the fire” (NIV). Roy Hattersley (b. 1932) is a prominent British politician and author. Among his many books is The Life of John Wesley: A Brand from the Burning (2002).

*² These are the words of author Jake Hanson in his book Crossing the Divide (2016). The last ten words sound similar to Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741), although I doubt that Wesley himself would have phrased it that way.

It is interesting to note, though, that Wesley, who undoubtedly became one of the greatest preachers and theologians in British history was born in June 1703, and Edwards, generally recognized as one of the greatest preachers and theologians in American history, was born in October 1703.

*³ The Moravian missionaries were sent by Herrnhut, the community of faith established by Nicolas Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf in 1722. At that time, it was a part of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire. It is now in Germany and roughly only ten miles from the borders of Poland and of Czechia.

The Moravian Church traces its beginning back to Jan Hus, the Czech reformer who was burned at the stake in 1415. The last part of my November 20, 2019, blog post was about Hus and ends with a reference to the founding of the Moravian Church in 1727.