What I’m Thinking: Change is Coming

Change – making what is become something that is supposed to be – is a constant theme of the Scriptures, of the prophets, and of Jesus. We know that the world should be better than it is.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about Advent. This is the first Sunday coming, the Sunday of Hope.

I’m thinking about the beginning of a New Year in the Christian Church. And I’m thinking about not one, but two, Scripture texts.

(I know, trying to think about two things at once is probably not good advice – at least not for me.)

The first of those texts is found in the 33rd chapter of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 33:14-16). That relentlessly gloomy prophet suddenly  bursts into songs of consolation. He looked forward to a day when things would be better – and indeed, in Jeremiah’s day, they couldn’t have gotten much worse. Jeremiah saw the fall and destruction of his beloved city, Jerusalem.

In the 21st chapter of Luke (Luke 21:25-36), it’s Jesus speaking, and Jesus described what we would call the end of the world, the Apocalypse.

The thing is, is that both of these visions of a future are about radical changes to the world that is. For Jeremiah, it was the reversal of defeat and desolation. For Jesus, it was an end to, not just the occupation of Rome, but also the ways that God’s people had fettered themselves, kept themselves away from a full appreciation of God’s love, God’s grace, God’s compassion for them.

“The times they are a-changin'” – so say the folk songs of the sixties. And it is true that in just about every place and time of the Hebrew and Christian faiths, and for that matter it is true in just about every place and time of nearly every other faith tradition in the world, there is this understanding: that things as they are are not as things should be. And that some sort of intervention is necessary in order to bring them into line.

To make love easier to share.

To make hope come true.

To make joy something that is lifted up without fear.

To make peace that which rules.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear about what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below; I’d love to hear from you.