2025 is here, and I’m headed into my sixty-third trip around the sun. Some folks have made more of these. Some less. At any rate, we’re all on the same merry-go-round, or, as Solomon might have stylized it, “the misery-go-round.” That ancient king once said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” And as you would expect when going in a circle, you tend not to get anywhere new.
But wait. There is something new. It doesn’t originate under the sun, and its possibilities rise above the numbing continuum here on the ground. It breaks out of the dreary predictability of the same sin, same suffering, same death.
God first announced it in Exodus 12, when he gave instructions about the Passover. He told the people, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you” (Ex. 12:2).
Yes, it all started with a lamb.
As the rest of Scripture unfolds, we’re told “Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). And so, this was the beginning for all who trust in Him. Doesn’t matter how many times you have already rode the ride in a circle.
But this beginning went on to become a lot more. Paul wrote, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). As believers, our current reality is one of eternal freshness. New history, new substance, new life, new affections, new destiny. In a real sense, we “passed away,” and entered a timeless state in a completely different world.
How about the old world we still inhabit? The furniture, so to speak, is still clunky, and we have to live with it. “In the world, but not of it,” Jesus said. Well, the work of Christ will catch up with that, too. God spoke through Isaiah the prophet,
“For behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind” (65:17).
The entire cosmos will be swallowed up in the wake of Christ’s work, disposing of the old, sin-stained history that accumulated during our many trips around the sun.
When it happens, we’ll understand that while everything and everyone else was traveling around in a circle, one thing moved forward…
Purchase John’s new book here!
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on John Myer
Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Comments are closed.