Meanwhile BBC’s Denis Johnston arrived at Hitler's Bavarian retreat at Berchtesgaden. In his dispatch, he seems subdued. He had been reporting on the war for three years and is audibly struggling to grasp that it is, in Europe at least, over at last.
"It's rather hard to know what to say," he says.
"There have been so many false dawns. We are quite unprepared.
And in San Francisco, a young reporter called Alistair Cooke described a much more subdued atmosphere.
"San Francisco is certainly relieved that it doesn't have to go on looking over its shoulder at the deaths of its boys in Europe. But it faces west, as the thousands of sailors here well know. The docks are being got ready not for any celebration but for the few million men fresh from Europe who will pass through here to the still unfinished Battle of the Pacific.”
And King George himself that evening said “ Remember those who are no longer with us.”
Perhaps in the variety of these responses we have something of a clue as to how it will be to emerge from the Covid 19 chapter of our global history and our personal stories. A deep gratitude, a certain disbelief and caution, an awareness that dangers still remain and of course the sadness for those who have lost their lives.
It is remarkable that the post war era was the most stable and prosperous Europe and the world has ever seen. Out of all the uncertainty and struggle something quite wonderful emerged. This was partly due to the generosity of spirit of the victors, the commitment not to make the same mistakes as after the First World War, the sheer economic extravagance of the Marshall Plan, the stepping forward of public leaders of real vision and moral calibre and the democratic power of ordinary men and women who realised a new world order was needed.
It is amazing how humans can re generate from disaster, we are a very resilient species and we will find a way forward in our time too. As Christians though, we have an additional perspective, especially in this post Easter period. We believe we are in between times, between the resurrection of Jesus and his return and the beginning of a new heaven and a new earth at the end of time. The victory has been won decisively over sin and evil and death on the cross of Calvary and in the open tomb, yet sin, evil and death remain as very present realities in our world and it can seem especially at times like this that they still have the final say.
Jurgen Motlmann was a German soldier who spent time as a prisoner of war. Afterwards, like many German theologians he struggled to reflect on what had happened and how do we talk of God in a post Auschwitz world. He explored God himself had experienced death as the Crucified God not only on the cross but in the horrors of war as he suffered with us. However, over time he articulated a beautiful theology of hope that saw God’s future as breaking in, pulling us towards the final destination of our beautiful but sad and broken world, We are being pulled from his future, not just pushed from our past.
“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and God himself will be with the people and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eye, there will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21.
Yes there is work to be done and struggle and hardship ahead but we can live into this as people of hope, “convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Romans 8.
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