(FinalCall.com) [Editor’s note: The following article contains excerpts of a New Year’s Day Message delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan on January 1, 2005, at Mosque Maryam in Chicago, Illinois.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
The first day of the New Year should be a day of reflection, a day of prayer, a day of praise and thanks that we were blessed to make it through the last year, because there are so many of those that we know, those that we love, who started the New Year with us last year, but did not know that it would be the beginning of their last year on this Earth. So when we are fortunate to be alive to see an old year go out, and a new year comes in, for me, that time should be spent reflecting and thanking God for those who touched our lives and sweetened our own presence on this Earth, but are no longer present with us.
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From the time that I was a child, I never saw New Year’s as a time for partying. Never. I think it was because of the beauty of my mother and my deep Christian upbringing. Christmas Eve was always spent in Church, and for New Year’s, the same. So I grew up never thinking of a party, but thinking of whether this would be the year that I would not make it, or someone that I love would not make it. So we thank Almighty God, by whatever name you call Him, for granting us life and permitting us to see the beginning of a new year.
I stayed awake and watched the ball drop in Times Square; and I saw the fun and the frolic and the noise, and it reminded me of something I read in the scripture that “the old world goes out with a great noise.”
We are living in a world that is on its way out, and The Wicked are making a great noise. Things are getting so dark in the world and the evil that people are doing is almost unfathomable, that it is as almost as though a prophet never walked among human beings. It is almost as though no scripture has ever been sent down for The Guidance of Humanity, for humanity seems to be lost in a downward spiral into savagery, bestiality and decadence.
And in the midst of this, there are those who praise God with their lips, but their hearts are far removed from what their lips may say.
God is Love
The Old Testament of the Bible is considered a “testament of law.” The New Testament is considered a “testament of love.” Sometimes people observe law out of fear of punishment, not necessarily because they love the law. Some people do good in hope of a reward, not necessarily because they love the doing of good. But “love” is above the “law.” Love is the highest manifestation of Law. It is such a high principle that the scripture teaches that those who demonstrate love are His disciples. If you don’t demonstrate love, you can’t even claim to be of God.
So my question then is: What is this thing called “love”? Everybody talks about it. But what is it? Now, my Sister Claudette Marie Muhammad: Anytime she writes something to someone, she always opens her letter with, “God is Love.” And I remember when I first met a Muslim follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he asked me: “Who is God?” and with my deep Christian roots, I responded: “God is Love.” He said, “Why brother, ‘love’ is an abstract term. The Bible says man is made in the image and the likeness of God.” He was trying to teach me, cleverly, of The Value of the human being, and The Indwelling Spirit of The Creator.
Those of us who have studied the lives of the prophets know that these are human beings with human idiosyncrasies, but once God touches that human and raises that human where that human can reflect The Characteristics of God, then He sends such a person to represent Him to the people who know Him not.
When you have a sentence starting with “God is,” then the word “love” is either a predicate nominative or a predicate adjective. But what comes on the other side of the verb “to be” (is), is equal to the noun (God). God is Love. So then that means you can turn it around, and say, Love is God.
