New Things

In a lot of ways Christianity is about new things and fresh starts. Some people talk about the church as being outdated and out of touch - and often it is. But at the core of its identity, the church is about what is and will be new, not what is old. At the beginning of the book of Genesis, the very first book in the Hebrew Scriptures, we read that at the beginning of all things God created order out of disorder. God made a new earth and a new history. At the end of Christian Scripture we find that odd book of Revelation, which ends with the beautiful promise in 21:1-5b; all that is old, all that is painful and broken, will be made new and made whole:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them;

They will be his peoples,

And God himself will be with them;

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

Mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

For the first things have passed away. 

And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.”

We are people of a faith rooted in the past but centered on the future - or more accurately, centered on the “eschaton.” As an eschatological religion, Christianity isn’t focused on what is going to grow logically or naturally out of the past (i.e., the future), but instead is focused on the new thing that is going to break into our reality (i.e., the eschaton). The future is rooted in the past, which can never be new, but the eschaton is rooted in God and is something new and whole. We focus on the eschaton when we celebrate Easter and Christ rising from death. The future would have determined that he be buried and remain in his grave, but the eschaton broke into that course of history and did a new thing!

Despite our faith being centered on the new, I personally sometimes find it very difficult to do new things. Take, for example, the beginning of the school year. I cried the day I took my daughter to kindergarten. It felt too scary and too new. This week I took her to the first day of 11th grade, the whole while telling her I was going to send her back to kindergarten because I wasn’t ready for this. But Kinder? I had made it through once, I know I could make it through again! I’m sure many of you can resonate with the hesitancy, fear, or even panic that arises when something new and unfamiliar comes your way. The Israelites did when they fled slavery in Egypt, they even complained to Moses about missing the food.

The Covid-19 pandemic took a lot of things from us. As I get to know you all, I hear quite often something along the lines of “well, before Covid we….” Both programs and people have been lost and you miss them. But Covid didn’t give us much of a choice, it took the old world from us and has left us facing a new future that we still can’t clearly see.

But, we are the people of the promise that one day the new will come and all will be well, we do not need to live in fear of newness. As we run the race set before us, both in our individual Christian faith and in our community faith, let us breathe deeply of Christ’s own faith, who faced the new for us and broke open the future so that the eschaton could come. What will happen in the future? All we can do is make educated guesses based on the past. What will happen in the eschaton? According to Scripture, God will be all in all and we will be made new.

God grant us courage to be open to whatever new things you have for our lives and our community.

?Blessings,

Rev. Dr. Amy L. Chilton