By Dave Wise
Yesterday welcomed a new year. For some of us it marks a time of new beginnings. We make resolutions, set priorities and look forward to new opportunities.
Others of us may think of how we’ve made resolutions only to see them go by the wayside. We may be expecting only more of the same old thing.
We can find ourselves trapped in those endings, robbed of our energy and joy for living, so that an ending becomes THE END with a period.
Or, our ending can have a semi-colon; it can be a kind of pause before a new phase. We can allow some endings to bring forth possibilities and renewal.
The poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “What we call the beginning is often the end, and to make an end is to make a new beginning. The end is where we start from.”
Think about that. The end is where we start from.
Maybe the question is as we begin a new year is how do we start from the end to make a new beginning in our life, whatever that end is for us?
Sometimes to make an ending we have to seek and accept forgiveness for wrongs we’ve done to others. Sometimes we have to offer forgiveness to others for wrongs committed against us.
Sometimes we have to let go of anger, regret or feelings of unworthiness. Sometimes we have to allow ourselves to grieve so we can discover the love that lies beyond the pain.
Then our endings can become glorious new beginnings.
We seek not the hope of hitting the lottery, not the hope of acing that test we didn’t study for, not the false hope that we can solve the problems of violence in the world through the barrel of a gun.
No, the hope we seek in Christ is different from any the world may offer. It calls us to be all we were meant to be. It offers us a light in an otherwise dark world. It tells us it doesn’t matter where we’ve been or who we are; we are offered a new beginning through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
There can be so much darkness in our endings. Yet it is not in running from darkness, or pretending there is no darkness, that we experience the light of new beginnings.
Think about this: Jesus’ first resurrection appearance recorded in John’s Gospel took place while it was dark. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb on that first Easter morning “while it was still dark.”
It was the evening of the same day, to disciples behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jews, that Jesus came and said, “Peace be with you.”
It was after a dark night of catching no fish that the disciples saw Jesus just as the dawn was beginning to break.
Some say the hour before dawn is darkest. The light of Christ that rises upon us at our present time, in our darkest moments.
As we begin this new year, we know there will be many transitions in our life between old and new. We will have to make endings. We will have to learn to let go. And we have to move ahead, toward the light, not really knowing where we’re going. We have to trust that God is with us during those in-between times.
If we don’t want to keep traveling down the same old road, experiencing the same old detours and the same old dead ends, we need to step out of the darkness. We need to seek the light that is Christ and place one foot in front of the other and follow.
As we travel down that new road, we won’t be alone. The love of Christ still lights the way for you and me. The God who was in Christ is in us, working to make the darkness of our endings into the light of new beginnings.
May this be a day of new beginnings for you.
Pastor Dave Wise at the Otterbein Church in Greenfield. Send comments to [email protected].
