THE WORLD, ALL NEW

          We all have our pet peeves. One of mine is found on TV (actually, probably many of mine). This is how, at the end of an installment in a dramatic series, we are treated to teasing shots from next week's show, and the deep, urgent voice says something like next week, on an all-new West Wing…

          Why all new? Why not just new? Do they think we'll hesitate to watch for fear they'll slip some not-new minutes into the middle of the hour? Yet they all use the same expression: all new. It just adds to the hype. It hardly adds to the clarity of our use of language. It bugs me! Am I sounding just a little like Andy Rooney here?

          But I would use these words to describe our Christian claim of what the coming of Christ does for our lives, and our world. All new. It's too amazing, and wonderful, a claim to settle for any lesser expressions.

          For one thing, it emphasizes that the birth of Jesus was not just the advent of a person who would influence a whole lot of lives. It was the coming of God among us in human form. That God would choose to be present in such as way had no precedent in history. This incarnation changes the way believers look at every tree and rock, at everything that occurs to us, and certainly at one another. Emmanuel, God with Us, is God revealing the divine relationship to all earth and history in a new way.

          For another thing, it reminds us that despite appearances, this coming is all-transforming. Even the things that don't look different at all have a new meaning. Believers look at the presence of all the things that violate God's creative purpose-war, crime, illness, careless and immoral behavior, tragedy, suffering of all kinds-not as evidence that the Lord's coming hasn't made a difference, but as things to be seen now in light of God's coming. Things that have not yet shown evidence of the new reality, but that are ultimately redeemable, as every human life is redeemable, through the present love of God.

          A new Advent begins. We see our lives with all their longings, in the shadows of a world with much hardship and struggle. We wait, and prepare, to celebrate Christmas again. But it is more than that. We wait to receive again the news that the whole world is a different place, and that we can make the faithful choice to believe and participate in the ongoing effects of His coming.

For this, all new seems a pretty good description.

With prayers for Christmas peace,

Rod