Rev. Aaron Long: Old man, New man

Column

I have been thinking through all of this snow and ice about the wonders of creation and how it affects us.  I was sitting on the back porch of the parsonage and watching the snow fall across the ball field behind the church and just basking in how beautiful it lay on the ground, you know getting all poetic and stuff.  Then I got up and walked the dogs, hit an ice patch, let loose some un preacherly words and hurt myself and cursed all of this devil white mess falling from the sky.  When I finally got back into the house, I laughed at myself because this last fifteen minutes summed up the nature of humanity in general.

When God created Adam and Eve, He created them perfectly.  God put them in a perfect garden, He fed them perfect food.  All of this was like me sitting on the back porch looking out over the beautiful white snow, perfect and white and clean.  Eden was all comfortable and nice, the weather was always perfect, the animals all got along with each other.  Problem is, God gave Adam and Eve one simple rule, don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Now what do you think is going to happen when you tell anyone not to do something.

Sure, enough Adam and Eve ate from that tree and death entered the world.  Adama and Eve fell into original and actual sin, and the perfection of God’s world was marred.  Paul talks about it as all creation groans until the redemption.  My fall on the ice happened because of this fall.  The world, because of Adam and Eve has become a dangerous and troubling place.  Bees now sting, dogs bite, plants can poison, and people will gossip.  Everything has gone sideways.

Now, God looked at this world and all of these problems and made a decision to fix it.  God sent His Son Jesus to live a perfect life and die for our sin.  God sent His Holy Spirit into the world on Pentecost to empower His people to make a difference, to make a change.  God is working towards the return of Christ with the wheat and tares, the sheep and goats shall be separated, and every tear shall be whipped away.  God is restoring the perfection of His creation.  We have hope that everything is going to work out.

Now, you might say, preacher, this seems like man has messed everything up and God is fixing it, what does this have to do with me, with individual Christians?  Well, when we are saved God renews us, He restores us, and more importantly He empowers us.  He empowers us to go about doing His work.  He makes us able to wipe others tears away, to feed and clothe people, to comfort and strengthen others.  If you are saved you will be out there doing the work of Christ in the world, lifting others up.  If you aren’t doing this work, you have no reason to think you are saved because as we are saved God changes and enables us to do it.

Get out there and fix the world.