By Pastor Kevin Barnhart
Spring Grove Evangelical Free
There is a softness to the sky in the dawning of a new day, have you seen it? Moments like these can feel far away and fleeting. Even in the morning calm so often gnawing at our hearts are all the broken pieces of life. Life is hard. This past year has driven many people to depths never experienced before with challenges, sorrows, emotions, and worldwide tensions. Many of us feel like tightly wound strings just waiting to unravel. We have faced racial tension, election stress, COVID-19 lockdowns, sickness, and death… and this is all on top of the normal world realities of broken hearts, difficult goodbyes, hard diagnosis, torn families, friendships lost and many more.
Behold, I am doing a new thing; can you not see it… now it springs forth; do you not perceive it… I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert… (love God). Isaiah 43:19
It is within this muddy mess that God wades in and promises us… no he declares to us, “Behold I am doing a new thing; can you not see it?”
The promise is not that all sorrow will be washed away, or that life will take on a magical level of ease. Not at all. God promises us that he is making all things new, that we will find a way in the wilderness and a river in the desert.
The words were written thousands of years ago. But it feels like they were written about these moments right now… the world feels like the rugged wilderness and our hearts are desperately like the dry and desolate desert.
Behold, I am doing a new thing; can you not see it?
The truth is that all too often we can’t see it and we won’t see it unless we change our focus.
In a war-torn world, in a filthy manger, to an unwed mother and an unknown carpenter, enters Jesus. The world was messy – it is messy. He came into the mud, the mire, and the muck because Christ is this new thing… he is the way and the truth and the life. Can you see Him?
You may be knee deep in sorrow, overwhelmed with fear, burdened by having lost your job, struggling to teach your kids, anxious over our government, waiting on the next test result and today may find you anything but able to see Him. You may feel like we have lost so much this past year…
But let me share a promise with you, we haven’t lost all hope, we are no longer sheep without a shepherd… whatever your story is… wherever your heart is, let His promise wash over you-
Behold I am doing a new thing. Christ is this NEW thing. Jesus loves you… yesterday, today, and always — so my brothers and sisters, take heart. There is a way in your wilderness and a river in this desert…Christ has come and he will come again – Amen!