Monday, August 5, 2019
664 - Something New
Spirituality Column #664
August 6, 2019
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Something New
By Bob Walters
In an interview some 50 years after the fact, Paul McCartney
related a story about the first time the Beatles recorded an album using
“stereo” sound.
“What’s
stereo?” McCartney had inquired, having encountered the technology for the
first time. The studio sound engineer
explained that in “stereo” recording, music is divided into two channels. “Some of the music comes out of the left side
speaker,” Paul was told, “and some comes out of the right side speaker.”
McCartney’s early-1960s response
was a playful, puzzled, “Yeah? Great! Why?”
Although today we can’t imagine
sound or video recording that doesn’t offer the depth and texture of multiple
tracks, multi-channel sound, and multi-dimension video, one of the last
century’s and arguably one of history’s best known musical talents had to
start, at some point, hearing about “stereo” for the first time. It was totally new.
This Beatles vignette was in a
chunk of text I actually removed from something else totally new – something I
did for the first time over the weekend – which was to preach a message – a
sermon – in a small church service. It
was at Allisonville Meadows assisted living center here in Fishers, Ind., and
while I loved the “stereo” analogy, I forced myself not to veer so far away
from the point I wanted to make.
And my point was … that the most
shocking, totally new thing in all human history was Jesus Christ. He revealed to humanity eternal life,
relationship with God, the fatherhood of God, forgiveness of sin, peace in this
life, comfort of the Holy Spirit, and the assured knowledge of saving grace,
sacrificial love, God’s glory, and ultimate victory over sin giving human life
a depth and texture it never previously offered.
That is the truth of the Gospel; that was totally new and totally
unexpected.
It’s surprising, really, that
despite all the prophecy and Hebrew scriptures about a coming Messiah … everybody missed it. The greatest experts – the Pharisees and
Jewish leaders – utterly and violently denied Jesus when they should have known
his voice. Instead, they wanted to kill
him. And did. They did not know Him.
The opening of John 17 was the text
for the message. Verses 2-6 begin
Jesus’s well-known “Priestly Prayer” given on His way to Gethsemane. After leaving the Last Supper, Jesus prayed
for himself, his disciples, and for all believers. And he prayed aloud – as badly as Jesus
needed to pray to God, the disciples needed to hear it.
Jesus opens by praying for God’s
glory, His own glory (meaning His death, resurrection, and return to God), His
authority, His work … and the eternal life that will be given to all who
believe in Him. That was my core idea:
knowing Jesus is “The Right Stuff” (that was the sermon title; I took out the
Beatles, left in Chuck Yeager and Neil Armstrong and referenced Tom Wolfe’s
1979 book about aviation adventure) to know God, for God to know us, and for us
to have eternal life.
The disciples – fearing Jesus’s
death and likely their own – had no idea about eternal life or what was about
to happen just three days later and on into human history.
I can imagine music without the
Beatles, but none of us would have a clue – or could possibly have a clue –
about eternal life or even new life without Jesus Christ.
That
was really and truly something new.
Walters
(rlwcom@aol.com) thanks retired ministers Bob Tinsky and
John Samples for the opportunity to preach, which to be honest was kind of a
bucket list thing for Bob anyway. How
did it go? Evidently OK … they invited
him back next month.
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