New Beginnings
When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Gensis 1:1-5
World War I was also called “The Great War.” Most lasting though is the phrase that it was “The War to End All Wars.” This phrase originated with a series of articles published in London newspapers beginning in 1914, written by British author and social commentator H. G. Wells. In these essays Wells used the phrase “the war to end war.” These articles gave rise to the First World War being called the “The War to End All Wars.”
It was believed that ending German militarism would secure world peace. To prevent Germany from ever again being a world power, and in retribution for starting the war, the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on June 28, 1919, was extremely punitive. In fact, the peace treaty was so severe that it made it impossible for Germany to reestablish itself as a nation.
President Woodrow Wilson would have intervened for a more lenient settlement, but he was sickened and bed ridden, a casualty of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Germany, unable to recover, led to the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler and the Second World War. It was a war that began to restore the German nation from the oppression of the Treaty of Versailles, but soon became a war of ambition for world domination, coupled with a program of genocide.
There was the opportunity for a new begging; though, it was a lost opportunity.
During the Second World War, George C. Marshall served as Chief of Staff. All generals and admirals, including Eisenhower and McArthur, Nimitz and King, as well as all foreign military leaders of the Allied powers, were responsible to him.
After the war Marshall served as Secretary of State under President Harry Truman. Marshall knew in order to prevent another European war, Germany had to be rebuilt economically. He instituted a restoration program known as the Marshall Plan, officially known as the European Recovery Program (ERP). As a result, a unified Germany is now one of our strongest allies and a member of NATO.
There was an opportunity for a new beginning; and, there was a new beginning.
Our reading for this morning begins with “In the beginning…” In verse after verse in the Genesis creation account, we read how beautiful this new beginning was. And it was, in every sense of the word, a new beginning, coming from the void came life. The entire globe was to be a Garden of Eden, a garden of community, where no one needed to hide behind a fig leaf. It took very little time for utopia to become “paradise lost,” and since then, we have only hoped to regain our sense of community.
Would it be overly simplistic to state that every story and every lesson in the Bible is a presentation of a “new beginning.” A story with the message of a new community that exhibits understanding and acceptance, forgiveness and respect. Perhaps the best place to begin is with Joseph, Moses, and David, where we have a chain of stories of new beginnings. Let turn to Nicodemus to be inspired. Even the story of Peter is a story of a new beginning, and can we ever leave out “doubting” Thomas or Zacchaeus. In all of these stories each of us has our place.
Every moment in the life of an individual, every moment in history, is a moment for a new beginning. Though some moments, like COVID-19 was, are a watershed moment for a new beginning.
Arundhati Roy is novelist who lives in India. She wrote an essay that was titled The Pandemic is a Portal. It was published on April 3, 2020. The essay put into perspective the effect that the coronavirus had on society, and her message went viral on social media. The essay set the stage that coronavirus, as tragic as it was at the time of her writing, could be the opportunity for a new beginning – a global new beginning. Roy makes many poignant points in her essay, most discussed was her closing statement:
Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
In my theology, bad is bad, and suffering is suffering. God’s response to suffering is the message of the Resurrection. The Resurrection informs us that we can bring some good ought of bad. It means that we can find some redemptive quality in suffering. It would be best if there was no evil in the world, but there is. The Resurrection teaches us that this evil can be defeated if we use it as an opportunity for a new beginning.
Mitch said that his earliest childhood memory was attending the polio treatment center at Warm Springs, Georgia. In fact, during some of his visits President Franklin Roosevelt was there at the same time to be treated for polio. Mitch said he doesn’t know how his mother, Julia, did it. She was alone, as her husband was in the military and deployed overseas during the war. His mother would drive him an hour each way for his treatments. Mitch referred to this part of his life as “eerie” times. When Mitch was asked how his mother paid for his treatment, as there was no health insurance or government financial assistance programs at the time, he was stumped and answered, “Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that.” This is Senator Mitch McConnell, who is the Senate majority leader. The Republican senator from Kentucky who is blocked finical assistance to destitute Americans displaced by the coronavirus.
A new beginning is what we desire, but some still wear fig leaves.