Clothesline 251 "All things new"

During this Easter season, our New Testament readings are taken from the Book of Revelation. While this book is often difficult to understand, it is nevertheless…exciting! The apostle John wrote about this cosmic battle between good and evil where Satan is cast into a bottomless pit. It’s only then that “the holy city, the new Jerusalem” descends out of heaven. God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death and mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” Then God says, “See, I am making all things new.” What does that mean? Well, to get at what this saying means, we’ll use the process of elimination. Let’s look at what it doesn’t mean.

The Lord doesn’t say, “See, I am making all new things.” All new things—that’s the promise of advertisers. They want you to believe that everything old belongs on the scrap heap so that we will buy the new thing. And if that were true, it would mean that God had decided to scrap everything and start over, including us! He did that once with Noah and the ark, but he also promised that he would never again destroy his creation…at least not by a flood. So, that’s the first thing this saying is not: “I am making all new things.”

The second thing God doesn’t say is: “I have made all things new.” This might sound like a verb-tense study, but it isn’t. “I have made”—that’s a promise of folks who are always looking backward, always saying life was better in the good old days. “Have made” says that everything is complete. But that can’t be because God is still working, even today!

And the third thing God isn’t saying here is “I will make all things new.” “I will make”—that’s the promise of politicians running for office. They promise the world and often times, they cannot possibly live up to their promises.

But thanks be to God, we aren’t dependent on the promises of advertisers, successes of the past, or politicians. Our lives depend on a God who loves us, takes care of us, and is all that we need at any given time. “See, I am making all things new.” And on that promise, we can stake our very lives!