Thought for Today
Ecclesiastes 1:9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.
Jeremiah 31:31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
Mark 1:27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching-- with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."
Luke 22:20 And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
You may have taken note of a phrase I often use, ‘of an age.’ For some reason, I do not like to use ‘the O word.’ Ironically, for those of us who are ‘of an age,’ we generally also eschew the word new. For something to be new, a change must have occurred. Those of us ‘of an age,’ do not like for anything to change. Sadly, the world does not take much note or concern with our dislike for change.
There is much to be learned from the book of Ecclesiastes, but I believe Qoheleth was as wrong as wrong can be in saying, “there is nothing new under the sun.” As I write these words on my laptop computer, looking around I see my smartphone, a miasma of wires, cables, chargers, etc. Qoheleth never even had a crystal radio, much less a transistor radio. Electricity itself is not new, but our modern use of electricity is certainly new.
One of my favorite adages is, ‘All progress necessitates change, not all change is progress.’ I suspect that idea is more along the lines of what Qoheleth was trying to convey. He may also have been thinking about what I call ‘people problems.’ Every generation during my lifetime has talked about how much more challenging life was for that generation than it had been for their parents. Was life really more challenging for the generation that fought WWII than for the generation that fought WWI? Every generation has fought wars. Were the wars of any generation more challenging than those of another? Or, were they simply fought with different technology?
I’m not sure whether our age has been given an agreed upon label similar to the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, etc. At one time I thought we might be labeled the Bluetooth Age, but that seems to have passed. Maybe the AI Age? All of those neat, all-encompassing labels tend to ignore that fact that those ages are populated by people. Our proclivity for not getting along with each other is not new, read the book of Genesis. Cain and Abel did not get along. None of the kings of Canaan could get along.
Are we condemned to cycle through an endless series of wars? Is that what Jesus meant when he said, “Mark 13:7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come?” Is our future merely the bleak panorama of continued violence upon violence, brother against brother?
I think not. Long ago the prophet Jeremiah foresaw a new contractual agreement being forged between us and our Creator God. He described it thusly, “31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Contracts and covenants are nothing new. God’s first covenant with God’s children is recorded in Genesis. We were only given a single responsibility in that contract, ‘don’t eat from 1 tree in the garden.’ We were found in breach of contract. Theologians identify several covenants in the Bible. As a Christian, I find Jesus’ words at the Last Supper about “the new covenant in my blood” to be the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant Jeremiah foretold, the covenant written on my heart.
As I continue down my own path, getting more ‘of an age,’ I don’t fear becoming technologically obsolete, being left behind by all of the ‘new’ in the world. I may grouse and grumble about all those ‘newfangled’ new things. In my heart, I know about that new covenant, sealed in the blood of my Savior. I can be at peace with our every-changing world, knowing the eternal truth of the hymn Jesus Loves Me, a beloved song I learned before I became ‘of an age.’
Stay safe, reread that covenant God wrote on your heart, trust God,
Pastor Ray