The Bungee Cord. 5-15-23
Hello,
You’ve never heard Bob Dylan sound like this… https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=620550276549022
We forget, don’t we. Those of us who grew up in the ‘60’s have a way of forgetting how top-si-turvy the world was for us when we were kids, or at least I often do. I was 7 years old when Bob Dylan released this song. I suspect that I was too young to really know about the roller coaster that I was on, but I do remember some things: long hair, bell bottoms and miniskirts, the Viet Nam war, riots and protests, “the generation gap”, a drug deal going on in my advanced physics class in the desk behind me, Elton John (was he gay?), hippies and cults, Watergate….as many older people said, “The world is going to hell.”
“Times, they are a’ changing.”
I’m an older person now. Retired. Almost 50 years from my high school graduation. Now I am one of those for whom high school kids will say at my 50th reunion, “Boy, is he old!” I am not sure if it true for every “old” person like me, but at this stage in my life, I am not very fond of roller coasters (truth is, I never have liked them). My joints are stiff. My back easily gets sore. My blood pressure is high. I have little hair to get blown in the wind, and my hands can’t grip as tightly as they used to.
But like it or not, life sure feels like a roller coaster. Covid, new gender understandings, daily mass shootings, people yelling at each other on “news” shows, fentanyl, empty churches, pink/green/blue/orange hair, Ukraine and Russia and China and Syria and Mexico, a constant aura of suspicion, unending political distrust….I hear many older people say, “The world is going to hell!”
Times, they are a’ changing.”
As one who counts himself “old”, you won’t hear me saying, “The world is going to hell!” We may be on a roller coaster, but it seems to me that we always are and have been. As I read the Bible, I find that humans have been on a wild ride since the beginning of our existence. The stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah and their descendants, Moses, King David and his descendants, the prophets, the Babylonian exile, the birth and death and resurrection of Jesus, the life of the early church….it’s been a wild roller coaster ride. Even the volumes of science, history, and sociology agree….it’s been a wild ride.
And here’s why I don’t think that this ride is taking us to hell…..God is with us on this ride. In every twist and turn of Scripture, the Bible tells us that God was there. And in the incarnation of Jesus, God would have us know that in every hill and valley of history, science and sociology, God was there. God is with us on this roller coaster of life…every century of it, every decade of it, every year of it, every day of it, every minute of it, every second of it… God is with us. Embracing us in God’s love when we have made a mess of life. Holding on to us when we have fallen off a cliff. Guiding us as a wise shepherd when we have become lost or when the future looks ominous. Enlightening us when things become complex and difficult to understand. But most important of all, Jesus says, “drawing us unto himself” (John 12:32)
This world is not going to hell, because God has ahold of it. Things, as they always have, been a’ changing…but in the midst of the change…changes that we will need to adapt to….one thing will not change: God’s grip on God’s creation, and that includes the speck of that creation that you and I are.
God, hold on to me tight, because “Times, they are a’ changing.”
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
No comments:
Post a Comment