Loving New Year to You!

 

It really wasn’t an indulgence for me to buy a few new shirts last week.  Truthfully, I rarely buy clothes.  When I do, I try to buy stuff that works reasonably well for my well-padded frame.  Consequently, the stuff lasts a good while.  So the lords of Madison Avenue probably hate me for not heeding their advertising dog-whistle very often. 

 

So I washed the shirts and put them on hangers.  That’s when reality hit me.  Where am I going to put them?? 

 

You see, my closet has no vacancies.  Every bit of space is taken up with all the other stuff I’ve been wearing forever.  I mean, I can force my feet into my shoes with a shoe horn.  But nobody has invented a “shirt-horn” that I can use to squeeze a few more into my closet. 

 

Alas, the only solution is that some of the old stuff has to go.  That’s the unanticipated cost of getting new stuff.  So I’ll need to grow up and part with some old friends on hangers. 

 

So it is with God’s blessed Covenants!  The Old Covenant is replaced.  The New Covenant is established forever.  The difference is, there is no “throwing out” of the Old Covenant, like my old shirts.  Because the New Covenant — rooted in the finished work of Jesus on the cross — FULFILLS (not replaces) the Old Covenant.  And simplifies my job and yours.  Because two laws, summary laws of double-edged love, provide a spotlight for the path before us. 

 

Simply love God with everything we have.  And love our neighbor, be passionate about our neighbor’s well-being, just as we are passionate about our own well-being.

 

Like my old shirts, it’s time for 2025 to go.  May we, in 2026, find ourselves being the lovers Jesus taught us to be.

 

Pastor Terry