The Winters family is trekking northward for vacation, and we stopped overnight on the 31st in a hotel for a break from the road. As such, Cricket and I (Jay) got up around 6:30am on January 1st to go get some hotel breakfast. Due to my normal travel schedule with District and such, I’m no stranger to hotel breakfasts, or the people at hotel breakfasts. So when Cricket and I started getting stuff and were interrupted by gruff, unhappy people – I was a little surprised. Usually people are pretty pleasant at hotel breakfast, but not today.
Now maybe the foul moods were due to staying up late to watch uninspiring pop stars try to sing in the rain, or maybe it was one too many flutes of champagne, or maybe we just stumbled upon Grumpsville, but even Cricket noticed that people weren’t as nice. As we were talking about it at breakfast (Liz and the other two were still in the room, sleeping), I chuckled to myself as I thought about all of the possible failed resolutions represented in that room, and it was 6:30am on January 1st. 
At the beginning of the year we can set goals and/or resolutions. As best as I can tell, goals are things that we work towards while resolutions are things that we have to achieve and maintain starting on January 1st. I think I prefer goals. Goals are a little more forgiving. If I set a goal that I will do “x” by 2020, then I’ve got a whole year. If I resolve something, I have to start it and continue it from January 1 to December 31st, if I don’t, it’s a failure.
There’s something in that concept that helps us to understand the theological idea of “righteousness”. Righteousness is unforgiving. Righteousness can’t wait. Righteousness has to be “on”, it has to be perfect. Righteousness can’t have a bad morning at hotel breakfast. Righteousness doesn’t give us until next year, it has to be today and everyday after. Righteousness is hard – even righteousness in one little measly resolution like not eating Cheetos or watching Hoarders on TV or using that gym membership you just bought every day or even being pleasant at breakfast. As humans, we’re bad at resolutions which shows us that we’re bad at righteousness, which shows us that we need Jesus.
Jesus is righteous. Let that sink in. He never had a failed resolution, He never had a bad morning at breakfast, and while He was never temped with Cheetos or Hoarders, He could have resisted. He resisted putting false gods in the place of His Father, He resisted using His Father’s name in vain, He remembered the Sabbath, He honored His parents and authorities, He didn’t hurt, steal, lust after, speak badly about or covet His neighbor. He did all of that without having a bad morning, even after not sleeping well. You can’t do that. I can’t do that. And that shows us that we need Him. We need Him to save us, and we need Him to die on a cross for us, to save us from our failed resolutions and our bad days at hotel breakfast and all of the bad stuff we do.
Jesus gave you His righteousness. Have you ever met that mythical person who followed through on one resolution? Aren’t you impressed when you meet them? You should be. It’s an almost superhuman feat. Jesus did that in *everything*. And He gives you His righteousness, His perfection. His resolution keeping is yours, and will be perfected and completed in the Resurrection where we will all keep our resolutions for eternity. So when you think about your resolutions (they are probably good things after all), think about how Jesus could keep them perfectly and has given you His perfection. Celebrate that…..and be nicer at breakfast if you can.