New Years and New Ways 12/31/44
Scripture: Read Hebrews 12: 1-15
Text: Isaiah 1: 16,17; “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”
With the end of this day, comes the end of an eventful year. And with tomorrow’s dawn a new year will have begun with all of its hope and sorrow, and trial and triumph.
An inventory of 1944 might remind us that it began with prayer on January first. There were continued services of prayer throughout a week at the beginning of the year. In June, a whole nation prayed intently and earnestly as its young men and their equipment were flung into invasion. All year long, people have bowed in anxiety - some in grief - nearly everyone in hope.
And we shall enter a new year in hope - hope that this warfare may be brought to victory and peace; hope that the earth may then be a better place in which to live; hope that we may all then be reunited with those whom we love - so many of them now in such widely-scattered, distant places.
To most vigorous souls, the future usually looks brighter than present or past. It seems that the untried future gives better promise than the error-filled, familiar present. Tomorrow, we can surely do what, today, we left undone or did wrongly.
The sculptor, Thorwaldson, was asked: “Which is your greatest statue?” He replied: “The next one.” His witty answer was at once an illustration of our belief in the better future and our dissatisfaction with the achievements of the past and present. We have an undying faith that tomorrow will be a better period in which to realize our dreams and accomplish our goals. Is that faith justifiable? The answer is one of those conditional “yes and no” answers. “Yes” if we are building well today the foundations of tomorrow. “No” if we expect that the mere advent of another day mysteriously will bring in perfect, or even better, results.
Faith in a better new year is hopeful or foolish, depending in a considerable degree on what we have been doing, and are doing now, to make it better.
To primitive man, every new moon brought a change of luck and a new control over the evil spirit. So the new moon was a time for rejoicing, for festivals and dancing. I suppose that, by the time man began to count time by years, the calendar became his chart of seasonal fortune. Each new year seemed to give him a new grasp on living and a new beginning in solving its problems.
In some ways, the earliest Christians adopted the same sort of philosophy. They expected a change for the better at the turn of a century. When the millennium of peace and perfection had failed to appear within the lifetime of some of Jesus’ friends, later Christians thought that it would come - together with Christ’s return - in the year 100 A.D. When that year came and went with no such advent, they expected that some great, cataclysmic change would come in 500 A.D. Disappointed in this hope, they waited expectantly for the year 1000 A.D. when they were certain that the passing of time would bring new beginnings and changes for the better.
We have much of the same philosophy in our day. We believe that “a time will come.” A few years ago, in the midst of economic depression, we waited for the time when we would “round the corner.” Now we wait for something fine to happen “when the war is over,” “when Germany surrenders,” “when our men come home.” Our optimism is founded on a belief that time changes things, and that time improves things. A hope, basic in all human hearts, reaffirms the old proverb that “Time is a great healer.”
There is a far more adequate philosophy expressed throughout the Bible. It is partially recognized by the more discerning of the earliest Christians. It is seen steadily by the earlier prophets. Isaiah knew it, and it is proven by our experience. New beginnings come not with new seasons, but with new attitudes. The new calendar hung on the wall is not nearly so important as the sincere new resolution. And even the resolution has its only significance in a sincere change of heart.
Changes in life come not as we tear off a calendar sheet, but as we sincerely adopt new ..... [here pages 6, 7, and 8 are missing] [beginning again with p. 9]
The old unsolved problems of unequal opportunity, of national and racial and class clashing, of self-satisfaction and greed will still be on hand, aggravated immensely by new evils brought on by the war itself. Victory can not give us a new world. Any new or better world that we can hope for must be built with struggle and sincerity and sweat and tears and unquenchable hope. To believe otherwise is to court disastrous disillusionment.
How willing we would be to await the passing of time if we knew that the years would, by some mellowing process, change all people into neighbors, all men into brothers, all folk into friends.
But our woes and burdens are not lessened with the mere passing of time. The passing time has to be filled with our self-discipline and self-education, and with our deliberate attempt to learn to do good. As we deliberately build new attitudes, banish old prejudices and hatreds, and imitate the spirit of Christ, we discover changes taking place.
New strength arises and our better self becomes real. Like the musician in an orchestra, we have learned, through hours and years of painstaking practice how to put our notes into the great harmony. A symphony doesn’t just happen. It is compounded of sensitive souls and hard work.
Have we even made a beginning at mastering the commandment of our Lord, “Love your enemies --- pray for them which despitefully use you?” [Matthew 5: 44]. Well, that doesn’t come as easily as falling in love with the most attractive teen-age person of opposite sex who happens across one’s path. That was said by one whose life-long self-discipline in seeking, and doing, the will of God enabled him, in the midst of supreme suffering, not only to cry out for the divine presence with himself but to say “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” [Luke 23: 34].
How many of us can forgive Hitler or Himler? Well, do we have to? Jesus asked God to forgive his tormentors. That is considerably different from what it would have been had he said I forgive you. What if we and every suffering mother put it in the hands of God by saying “Father forgive Hitler and Himler and the premier of Japan?” and forgive us our trespasses. How does forgiveness come from God? Is it just given out or is it reserved for those who repent? Can even God grant forgiveness to one who will not repent? God is merciful - but God is still just. Can you see how one can pray for those by whom he is despitefully used? By laying the matter of justice and forgiveness with God- getting the rancor of it clear out of one’s heart, one is free to love in that greater sense which Jesus always meant when he used the word.
World community will not be built by this war. Common suffering and danger has drawn some parts of our world together, but that “togetherness” still has to withstand the testings of peacetime living. Peace will have to be built with great sacrifice and effort!
Racial tension can very easily grow far worse than at present, unless we humans of every race are willing to think and struggle and sacrifice and challenge our own prejudices that race relations may be improved.
Class divisions and working conditions and compensations are not going to be improved by waiting for a balance of power between employer and employed. Not until there is mutual respect among all as men can these matters be improved.
If there is to be on earth a realm worthy of being God’s kingdom, if our tomorrows are to bring new opportunity, if progress is to be sure, it must be because we, a courageous people, set our hearts, our hands and our heads to accomplishing and securing these things.
Not revelry, not ritual, not even just waiting will bring in the New Year we would like to see. That New Year can come only with new ways, with renewed effort and consecration. If we want that kind of New Year, we shall enter tomorrow with no irresponsible glee, but rather with the admonition of Isaiah written on our hearts: “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”
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Dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, December 31, 1944