Wednesday 16 February 2011

The new thing. A Facebook Conversation


Paul Anderson WalshJesus proclaimed the good news yet his message was rejected by the institution, not because it was good, but because it was NEW...! We much prefer the old to the new because the new invariably means - Change and worse still coming to the place where we might just have to face the fact that we were wrong!
.Yesterday ·LikeUnlike ·

Cathy Rheeder, Jonathan Wong, Tove Synnøve Tveit and 24 others like this..
Chris Welch "How many of us have become impervious to Behold I make all things new, and Behold I do a New thing....do you not perceive it?" because we are tossing it over our head to some charismatic set of circumstances. These verses are saying...forget all that for a game of soldiers ....I am saying new,new ,new...inside out new....incarnational new....what you've never quite heard before new.....
Yesterday at 08:17 · LikeUnlike.Kerrie Lee Anderson ‎..and "unfamiliar pathways.."
Yesterday at 08:46 · LikeUnlike.Paul Anderson Walsh Oh yes very much so!
23 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Stephanie McEntire Every time I read the passage where Jesus is in the temple and he is going to speak...and everyone is in there place...just waiting. He gets up...picks up the old dusty scroll that has been argued over...whined over...discussed until it's lifeless...and speaks out of Isaiah to a text concerning him...

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his CUSTOM. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:




“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,



to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in "YOUR HEARING.”

And then he handed the scroll back to the attendant...and sat down..he just ...sat down.

Now most would take all that and begin to once again try to "decipher" what Isaiah was saying...while the truth in fact is sitting in the midst of them...and isn't that how it goes really?

That day in the old dusty room of theology and debate...of who God is..and what he wants....has been brought down to the level of intimacy...The reason that he was "rejected" for the most part by the religious..and so many times that is "you and I"...is because we don't know how to "hand the scroll back to the attendant"...and begin looking into our own heart for the truth ...that will set US free..recover our sight...open our blind eyes...we don't know basically how to be still...and hand the scroll...back to the attendant...; )

I began to change when my line of questioning changed..
I used to say like Pilate..."What is truth?"
he got the question wrong...it's
"WHO is truth?" it is only then that you can back away from "self" long enough to see it...God is love..and in the realm of the religious debate..."he loves me...he loves me not" that just changed everything...

The reality that God is love..and he was walking among men in an earth suit...shook the very foundation of everyone...Religious and Gentile alike...and not much has changed today...

This new thing ...this new question that is sweeping through our hearts and minds...
"Do you KNOW...how much I love you?"

This NEW line of questioning brings the man/woman into the depths of their own heart...yet even still...because it is such uncharted territory even though the simplicity of it ..is just well...so simple...it's much easier to keep your hands firmly around the scroll and keep searching...for that something...that is living and walking among your heart...and rejection of it changes nothing..not one thing..the final authority is love...A new thing indeed...always new....every day..all the time..yesterday, today and forever...

Wrong...yes indeed..."SEE how have loved you..."

You see in all the things I know..that I think I know..that I might know..there is a place in my heart where "it is written"...
good news to the poor.
freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,



to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
I don't have time to be "right" anymore...
The discovery of this "new thing"...is all consuming.
.

Pamela Donnan good word Stephanie! preach it!
20 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Luis Leiva So very true!
16 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Zach Dixon BINGO
15 hours ago · LikeUnlike.

Chris Welch stunningly....good...well words fail me Stephanie
Wednesday at 09:54 · LikeUnlike.Paul Anderson-Walsh Wow! You sure batted that one out of the park Stephanie. Brilliant.
Wednesday at 11:21 · LikeUnlike.Sheila Vertoli Beautiful word Paul and Stephanie.
Wednesday at 13:10 · LikeUnlike

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