18 January 2016
There’s something appealing about a
fresh start. Just imagine if you could
wake up tomorrow without any resentments, without any lingering hurts from the
past, without any negative influences in life.
That sounds pretty good—to completely forget about the mistakes we’ve
made and just get on with living life. The
vision of a fresh start is appealing.
And yet, it seems like such an impossibility.
After all, we have very good memories;
we remember the stupid things we’ve done or said. We remember how we’ve hurt others and how
they’ve hurt us. We remember all those
friendships that went sour. We’re still
under the bad influences of others; we still have our destructive habits. In spite of our desire for a fresh start, we
can’t help but hang onto the sins of the past.
Now, God had ordered the complete destruction of the Amalekites:
all their men, women, children, animals, crops . . . everything. God had said (in effect): “Get rid of the
Amalekites—get rid of everything having to do with them; they’re nothing but a
bad influence on you, my people. Make a
fresh start for yourself, Israel.” But
Saul said: “Ok, but there’s good stuff here we can use. I mean, the Amalekites’ animals are good for
sacrifice (we can save our own animals), and I can keep their king as a war
trophy.”
In a symbolic sort of way, Saul was
saying there’s some value to sin. Of
course, that’s a way of thinking he picked up (maybe) through the generations
of Amalekites influencing God’s people.
As much as Saul fought to destroy sin, he couldn’t completely separate himself from sin. He was supposed to bring about a fresh start
for God’s people, but he couldn’t. His
habits of thought, like “old wineskins,” just couldn’t hold the “new wine” of a
fresh start in God.
And we can relate. Sometimes it feels good to nurture
self-pity. Sometimes we can’t help but
ruminate about things we’ve said or done.
Sometimes we can look at the
troubles of our past and say: “There’s some stuff here I can use. There’re some things I don’t want to get rid
of.” And yet, how much do we want that
fresh start.
All this week in Scripture, we hear about
the drama of a shift in power. The shift
from sin to virtue; from the letter of the law to the spirit of the law; from
worn out habits to new and fresh habits . . . a shift away from letting the sins of the past have power over us, and a
shift toward letting the vision of a
fresh start have power over us. We’ll
always have our memories, both the good and the bad.
But Jesus comes to us to remind us of
our foundation and to call us to our future.
We began in the Garden of Eden, and we’re called to life with the
Bridegroom of Heaven. May that vision of
a fresh start in Christ be our strength and our joy—today and forever.
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