LIFE CAN BEGIN AGAIN
The hard question of whether and how we can be freed from our existential burdens from the past and our dread for the future was addressed by Helmut Thielicke during the worst of the postwar years.
He says this was a boundary moment in which the human flank was somewhat less fortified against the Grace of God than in more normal times. Is this our situation in America today? Are people a little more open to this transforming word of radical love? MG
"The Proclaimer of the Sermon on the Mount says to us in our guilt and grief: before you begin intelligently to strike out on a new path and make a fresh start on life, you must first realize that everything that lies behind you has been set straight, that someone else has taken on your burdens, and that now you can really begin a new life.
And yet there is something that must be made clear at the outset. The radical, straight, earnest road to which we are directed, the entrance to which is a very narrow gate, is not so laid out that it will "lead" us into making a new future.
In nonfigurative language, the radicality of the demand is not intended to force a new situation in humanity and personal life by whipping up an increased intensity of zeal and determination. No, what the Sermon on the Mount sets forth is not the fantasy that Kant and the oversimplifying fanatics in their way demand.
On the contrary, instead of fostering the illusion that we can bring about a new situation and a new future by a radical exertion of our will, the Sermon on the Mount says to us: a future has been given to you, the air is full of promise, the ship of your life and history itself, is sailing toward a harbor where you are expected and your safety assured.
You are still pitching upon the hazardous waves, and hurricanes roar and strike terror in your hearts.
But something has happened that will bring your ways and wanderings to this goal, that will cause a future prepared for you in grace to come upon you. This future has already begun... in which marvelously dread is changed into assurance...
It does not say: you must start this new life! As if we could do such a thing anyhow, as if we were even willing to listen to such a thing! What it says is: something has happened in the province of life and you can allow it to give its signal to you. And then because that signal has been given, you can start afresh; life can begin again.
There are, of course, some very definite directions for this new life. But first there are some things that are simply given us.
To be able to begin afresh, to become a "traveler without luggage"—this itself is extraordinarily new; and if it is to be possible, requires a genuine miracle. And as a matter of fact, it is our purpose to tell about this miracle and to ask the question of how then we can live on the strength of that miracle...
Helmut Thielicke
The hard question of whether and how we can be freed from our existential burdens from the past and our dread for the future was addressed by Helmut Thielicke during the worst of the postwar years.
He says this was a boundary moment in which the human flank was somewhat less fortified against the Grace of God than in more normal times. Is this our situation in America today? Are people a little more open to this transforming word of radical love? MG
"The Proclaimer of the Sermon on the Mount says to us in our guilt and grief: before you begin intelligently to strike out on a new path and make a fresh start on life, you must first realize that everything that lies behind you has been set straight, that someone else has taken on your burdens, and that now you can really begin a new life.
And yet there is something that must be made clear at the outset. The radical, straight, earnest road to which we are directed, the entrance to which is a very narrow gate, is not so laid out that it will "lead" us into making a new future.
In nonfigurative language, the radicality of the demand is not intended to force a new situation in humanity and personal life by whipping up an increased intensity of zeal and determination. No, what the Sermon on the Mount sets forth is not the fantasy that Kant and the oversimplifying fanatics in their way demand.
On the contrary, instead of fostering the illusion that we can bring about a new situation and a new future by a radical exertion of our will, the Sermon on the Mount says to us: a future has been given to you, the air is full of promise, the ship of your life and history itself, is sailing toward a harbor where you are expected and your safety assured.
You are still pitching upon the hazardous waves, and hurricanes roar and strike terror in your hearts.
But something has happened that will bring your ways and wanderings to this goal, that will cause a future prepared for you in grace to come upon you. This future has already begun... in which marvelously dread is changed into assurance...
It does not say: you must start this new life! As if we could do such a thing anyhow, as if we were even willing to listen to such a thing! What it says is: something has happened in the province of life and you can allow it to give its signal to you. And then because that signal has been given, you can start afresh; life can begin again.
There are, of course, some very definite directions for this new life. But first there are some things that are simply given us.
To be able to begin afresh, to become a "traveler without luggage"—this itself is extraordinarily new; and if it is to be possible, requires a genuine miracle. And as a matter of fact, it is our purpose to tell about this miracle and to ask the question of how then we can live on the strength of that miracle...
Helmut Thielicke
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