Looking forward and backward
January. It would be easy this week to believe that the name of this month derives from some foreign language in which it means, “so cold your eyelashes can freeze and break off.” In fact, it does come from a foreign culture. In ancient Rome, Janus was the god of beginnings and endings, of doorways and archways and transitions. With its place at the turn of the year, January gained its name easily – looking back on the year past and forward to what would yet come. Facing backward and facing forward – the image of Janus in art and sculpture often was depicted quite literally with two faces.
The people of the early church, like the Jews who also were inheritors of biblical Israel’s traditions and faith, found themselves at a crucial turning point, an epic transition. When a Roman army crushed the rebellion of those living under occupation in the province of Judea, the venerable 500-year-old temple of Israel’s God in Jerusalem was destroyed. Soon the Jews would be expelled from Judea, driven out as the land was renamed Palestina to erase their memory. Soon the Christians would suffer horrific persecution, driven underground and forbidden on pain of death to identify publicly with their God.
As they looked forward at exile or life under constant scrutiny and threat, both groups looked back. They looked back to see how God had always been present and could be present still. Jews found a portable answer – the Torah of Moses and its lifestyle was something they could carry anywhere in the world, and still they do. Christians found a subtle answer – the Spirit of God that had animated Jesus could be received in baptism and renewed in their simple table fellowship, and still, it is. No imperial edict could exile the Jews from the scripture, written and oral, that shapes their lives. No raid on a house church could shake the presence of Christ who gives life to those who gather at his table.
God’s people in every age have faced disruptions, endings, beginnings, and transitions which have wreaked havoc on their communities and trauma on the people. It was not God who looked two ways, but God’s people who learned to look forward courageously by looking backward. Often the way forward seemed impossible and opaque, yet for those who looked back on Israel’s witness to the creator of heaven and earth, a way forward emerged. It is marked by the faith that God creates with people as an indestructible relationship. God is faithful to that relationship and the backward glance shows how many ways that has proven true. Whatever the crisis, God is still there. God doesn’t look away but remains the hope and guide for a people moving forward.
Rich Quinn
I always enjoy your meaningful messages. This comes at the right time as we start a new year, looking forward to new and exciting times while we also look backward to what we experienced.
Marcia Jensen
Remembering with gratitude.