What Is Truly New

 Attached to the rear panel of some metro buses a few years ago was a poster that might still strike deep into the soul of a sensitive person. It portrayed an astronaut standing on the surface of the moon, reaching out to an American flag that had apparently just been placed there. Just beyond the immediate lunar scenery could be seen the earth 280,000 miles away. It was a breathtaking picture. The caption read, “Been there, done that, what’s new?” In six words, a major cosmic achievement of modern technology was made trivial by words that reflected a shallow callous and exasperating indifference to greatness, having acknowledged that the achievement had, and for a while might have been, of some note, the captions turns with implied boredom to the relentless need to find something “new.” Enter the television channel, who having paid the price of this startling advertisement, considered itself the reliable source of what could be counted on to provide the viewer with what was “new.”

It seems likely that our generation will continue to be robbed of realizing when something of genuinely vast importance has happened. Simply because it is true, insignificance may not have been ballyhooed with enough “hype” to rouse our over-taxed senses. News of world changing events may get little attention if they report matters that do not qualify as “breakthrough” or “breaking news” or some window dressing that makes us stop and listen.

If even reports of exploits in space have a short shelf life as news, it may be small wonder that when we celebrate a resurrection or birth  that happened almost two thousand year ago we may see only a perfunctory nod in our public media. The bunny, eggs, Santa, presents and the sales will likely get much more press than the birth and resurrection that ushered in a very new chapter of human existence on this planet. Even so, the Christian message has survived rejection, persecution, ridicule, indifference, attacks of reason as well as ignorance, threats of the powerful, imprisonments, hatred, hunger economic deprivation, exile, the worst and the most foul treatment… history is full of relentless and aggressive pressures to give up the message. Yet, here we are, in the year of our Lord 2012, celebrating our Christian heritage. By any standard, the good news that our “last enemy, “has been overthrown could not possibly be anything but the best news that this world has ever had to take seriously.

“Because he lives, we shall live also,” has been the word that has turned around the life of our planet so that it has become possible to look ahead with hope and assurance rather than apprehension and dread, God’s down payment on a “future and a hope,” the likes of which the ancients could only dream. Power to you…and joy, may your life ring with the energy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And may you, who bear the weight of carrying the witness to Christ’s gospel into the world of our day, find refreshment and renewal. Our lives are the media, the message is Christ…offering to our world a gracious God whose love and mercy are truly new every morning.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Jansen