God looked down on lovely Lancashire and the rest of Planet Earth and resolved to up his game.

He was planning a New Year to end all New Years, and this one would change history from BC to AD. He considered various resolutions as he contemplated a new start.

First, should he send a few more preacher prophets to guide his beloved humans, even though said humans had stoned, sawn in half and generally not exactly enthused over the dozens he’d already sent in BC times?

Second, how about a second flood to provide another clean start? Surely that’d warn them against festive TV soaps teaching kids that anything goes in human relationships, even underage girls sleeping with underage girls, while their parents have orgies as trams pirouette off viaducts.

No. That was out too. In days of old, hadn’t he pledged a rainbow promise not to repeat such disastrous deluges?

Third, there was the Superman resolution, sweeping down to prevent evil robbers and the like having their wicked ways? But surely that would negate his gift of freewill, which allowed his beloved humans to choose their own path, wicked or otherwise?

Not for the first time was God grasping the difficulties of being God, and this time it was going to take a humdinger of a resolution.

It was then he recalled the promise of old, to give himself to humans as a babe who would grow to become their Saviour.

Each New Year, he invites humans to reciprocate by giving themselves back to him and he guarantees prosperity with it (Joshua 1:8).