The beginning of a new year is a natural moment for transitions. We are all transitioning from 2024 to 2025. We will all become a year older this year. Some of us will transition to new jobs or different homes. Some of us will become parents or grandparents. And some of us will not live to see this year out. Contemplating all these transitions or other possible transitions is not a cold, clinical reflection.
From personal experience and tapping into the experiences of many churches we visit in our conference here in northern Germany, we find that, overall, the prospect of change generates an underlying feeling of unease, discomfort, and even fear. The economic, political, or social realities of our world make this a very reasonable reaction. As Bible-believing Christians, armed with the knowledge that things will not get better over the long term, we can easily slide into an atmosphere of fear and be driven by and react from fear. But is this really what God offers? Is Adventism a transition from one existential fear to another?
The early Christian church in New Testament times completely lacked external support or opportunities that could bolster their faith. Things looked bleak in the first century A.D. Christians were persecuted. Society was in upheaval. War and unrest, political instability, famine, and other natural disasters, as well as extremely complicated social issues (including the pervasiveness of slavery), formed the soil in which early Christianity flourished. Christianity grew because the followers of Jesus seemed to have tapped into a new source of strength. Their lives were not based on underlying fear. They could count even hard things “pure joy” (James 1:2), because, somehow, they had transitioned from an underlying operating system of fear to an underlying operating system of fullness.
They knew themselves to be beloved children. No longer cowering beggars, scrambling for a favor from God. As they heard the stories of Jesus’ life and death, they realized they were loved. This was the secret to their strong, loving communities that were so strangely attractive. They had no striking churches, universities, hospitals, or other impressive structures—but they portrayed vividly (albeit imperfectly) the characteristic that Jesus described as the glue holding together His followers: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34, 35; NIV).
Imagine what it would be like if, this new year, we individually and collectively switched over to a new operating system. What would our churches be like if we operated from fullness and not fear? We wouldn’t have to fear what’s going on around us. We would be able to look at the chaos as opening cracks in society to pour in God’s love and introduce the hope of a soon-coming Savior. We would be more than braced for coming upheavals. We would be so full of love that any bump or upheaval would serve to spill not fear but love.
