New

Sometimes I worry that I have a serious addiction…I think I’m addicted to NEW. I love new things. I especially have a problem with the latest technology; cell phones, computers, iPods, you get the idea. In fact, this addiction has gotten so bad that last week I dropped my cell phone in the toilet, and deep inside my brain - as the phone was falling – I think I might have thought, “Good, now I can get a new phone.” It is so bad that I think Julie thinks I meant to drop it. I have a new cell phone and it is awesome but I just saw a commercial for the iPhone and I’m thinking of trying to text on my phone while I do the dishes with the garbage disposal running… New things just don’t stay new long enough.

For most of those who call themselves Christians this week is known as Holy Week. It is the week in which Christians remember and reflect upon the events which took place the week before the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Big Day of course is Good Friday (Easter Sunday is technically a new week) and the events upon which most reflect is Jesus’ suffering and death. So begins the familiar Christian practice of thinking of our sins and how Jesus died to pay the debt of those sins. I think this is a very helpful practice. But as with most things that are familiar I wonder if we are forgetting part of the story.

I have a favorite part in the movie “The Passion of the Christ” and I consider it nothing short of brilliant. It takes place as Jesus is carrying his cross, he stumbles carrying the cross and his mother runs to him and Jesus says, “See mother, I make all things new.” There is no record of Jesus saying this in any of the Christian Gospels but Jesus does say it in the book of Revelation. (Rev. 21:5) I think that scene with its contrast will stay with me forever. Jesus is beaten and bloody, stumbling from the weight he carries. But still he can see beyond what ours eyes can see. He sees the result. He sees the end. He sees and says, “I make all things new.”

And I wonder if that is what we’ve forgotten in our Holy Week habits. That while it is absolutely true and absolutely awesome that Jesus dies in our place, to focus on only that fact is to limit, and perhaps diminish all of what God has done. That death on that cross in that place so long ago does mean the forgiveness of all our sins, our failures, our selfishness. It means the end to all that keeps us from knowing God and knowing his love for us. It is the end of all my fears and failures and faults. It is the end of the old me.

Read Romans 6:1-10 (http://www.biblegateway.com/)

But it also means the beginning of something new. It means the beginning of a new me. And not just a new me once, it means a new me everyday. It means a new me every moment. In fact, I think this new is a totally “one of kind” kind of new. This is the kind of new where it actually gets newer! Each day that I leave the old me dead at the cross and look instead to new life Christ gives me I might even be “newer” than the day before. One step closer, one moment nearer to the new person God is recreating me to be.

That never happens with a new car or cell phone or computer or set of clothes. Those things are all getting closer and closer to old, closer to broken. But God has just begun with my newness, and despite what my eyes see or how I feel or what is going on with my body and mind, God is making me new. I am not who I was.

I’m not sure what your Holy Week practice might be but I hope it will include thinking about and thanking God for sending his Son in order to save us. But I also hope that you might think about and thank God for “making all things new.” I pray that we all might have the eyes to see things, not as they are, but as God is re-making them…New.