Reflection: "New Beginnings"Happy New Year.
That’s a nice greeting, don’t you think? It conjures up prospects of things going well for the year that is to come. When we think of things starting, I guess we need to look right back to the start of our biblical narrative, in Genesis Chapter 1, where it starts: “In the beginning…..” So, where did you begin? Where did your story - the story of you - begin? I guess it started with a birth story, at the time when your mother went into labour and presented a great gift to the world – you!But actually, you begin farther back in history. You could even be part of a great and noble race, a shoot from some distinguished family tree. Perhaps the part of you that most defines you, came from an ancestor's participation in one of history's great migrations: the crossing of an ocean, walking over the land bridge that existed between PNG and Australia, taking a ten-pound boat-ride from old blighty, or on a jet plane to Kinsgford Smith airport? Beginnings - whatever they are - are important. They tell us who we are, and they often define where we are going in this life. The Bible has a story about the beginning and some of us know it by heart. It goes a little like this: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." What a scene! God sets down in the midst of a formless darkness and from this face-to-face encounter, a sensible world begins. God makes order from chaos. A Divine Creator who stares down at nothing and works on it until there is something beautiful! It's the most important kind of beginning, a story that shows how a caring God can work. Because when the world feels like chaos, when we find ourselves trapped in grief or despair, when God seems to us to be nowhere...in that time when we’re desperate for a new beginning, we have this story of a beginning. We have a Creating God who reshapes the chaos into order, even into beauty. Beginnings happen all the time. Let’s look at just one that you might have heard about. At a Christmas Day lunch in Victoria in 1949, the Rev Frank Byatt placed a simple, empty bowl on the table before him, asking those around the table to contribute what they felt the cost of the meal had been. He suggested that they consider their own good fortune in being able to share a Christmas meal together. He also invited them to share God’s blessings of love and friendship in the form of a gift to help people who had fled the horrors of World War Two and were suffering as refugees. The Christmas Bowl Appeal, as we now know it, was then launched in 1950 as the main fund-raiser for Inter-Church Aid and was organized in Australia by the Australian Council for the World Council of Churches. In over 60 years, this event has spread world-wide and many thousands of churches have promoted the concept amongst their congregations. I believe that one of the mistakes many Christians make when they read the Bible, is that they think that the Bible only has one beginning. In fact, it's a book that has dozens of beginnings, maybe hundreds - and many of them echo this same theme. God creates order out of chaos. That's not a bad way to think about the significance of John the Baptist, who appeared in the wilderness demanding that people rise up to take responsibility for their lives and for the state of the world. John didn't show up in a world where everything was going fine. It was a world scarred and disfigured by the oppression of the many by the few, by state-sponsored violence, by greed, by the exploitation by the powerful of the powerless. John showed up there, standing in the waters of the River Jordan berating people – asking them to see the problems around them and telling them to make a change. To repent and change their lives to a new way. And then we read that Jesus wades into the river, next to John. It was like creation happening all over again. John baptised Jesus and a heavenly voice broke the silence: "This my son, with whom I am well pleased." And, just as before, there was a light in the darkness. As it was in the beginning, here was God in the world, wresting order from chaos. This time, it was by proclaiming good news to the poor and releasing every captive. God was in the world to speak peace to the world's strongest army, to feed the hungry as others hoarded their excess, to restore dignity to all in a world that afforded dignity to some and stripped it from others, to forgive us our sins and free us for love. So, we see that there's not just one beginning in the Bible; there are actually many of them, but they all contain echoes of the same theme: When the earth was a formless void, God ordered the chaos and made a good creation. When injustice reigned in human life, God sent Jesus to earth, to reorder lives from the inside out. When the earth was dark and its Saviour had been laid in a tomb, he rose again from the dead on the third day to show once and for all time, that there is no disorder that the love of God cannot put right, there is no chaos that God's love cannot turn into something beautiful. Today, at the beginning of this new year, many of us will refresh ourselves with the promises made in our own baptisms. Others might just wish for new beginnings in their lives and make resolutions as to how they propose to go about achieving those changes. We need to remember that every new day is a new beginning and that, whatever has happened in the past, God is willing to forgive us and we can make a fresh start. As we move forward, I want you to consider all of your beginnings. When did the Spirit of God hover over the chaos of your life, calling you by your name, and delivering you into a good and blessed place? I hope that I’ve convinced you that beginnings do matter. They tell us who we are - and whose we are. They tell us where we’re going - and even who we’ll meet when we reach the end. As it was way back in the beginning, it still is and it will be forever more, a world without end. Amen. Pastor Rick
1 Comment
Beryl
9/1/2021 08:03:11 am
Thank you for your encouraging messages each week. Rick.
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