Friday, January 4, 2008

Past and Future

Jim:

Joshua 3:14-4:7
A portion of verses 6 and 7 reads, “When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord.” The faith to which we are called is deliberately generational, always looking ahead and behind. One day in the future children will ask about the past, one day in the future an act in the past will provide an opportunity for growth and learning. In the life of the church we remember the ministry of Jesus as we await the coming kingdom of God in its fullness. At no time is the faith simply about “here and now” but it always carries with it an awareness of the past and future. One day in the future children will ask about the past.

Ephesians 5:1-20
Verses 8 and 9 say, “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light—for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.” Here, too, the past and the future are held together, but here there is tension where the two meet. What we were, what we have been, is gone, and in Jesus Christ we are free to move into the future as something new. Darkness is past, our future lies in the light and the fruit of the light. Like the people of Israel, we have crossed the Jordan leaving the wilderness behind and embracing the fruitful bounty of a new land, flowing with possibility and hope. One day in the future children may well ask about this past as well, and we can say to them that in Jesus Christ we are a new creation.

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