The Chaplain's Thoughts
Life presents many opportunities to make a new beginning. Advent has marked the beginning of a new Church year. January 1st marks the beginning of a new Calendar year. On April 6th begins a new tax year.
New beginnings are important for they give us the opportunity to live in hope. Those of us who are older may here become more cynical, but the young people of today, who can easily be ill at ease with the status quo, live in hope. Intuitively they know that there must be something better to hope for in the years to come.
As Christians we have a deep-seated code of values, but there is a danger in that value systems lose their potency when they drift from their origins. This is a real danger today and we do need reminding of it.
Jesus Christ came to teach us about the Kingdom of God. In one sense this is an 'other worldly state', but more importantly it is an open invitation to the human race to enter into an eternal partnership with God. If we do it now with single-minded loyalty we recover a child-like trust. Power is expressed through giving rather than through getting and by acts of service, so that measurements of success and failure are displaced. Rewards and punishments are turned upside-down. "The first shall be last and the last first!"
One day there will see a great upheaval when even the earth will remember. A New beginning!
Rev Dr Peter Newing