Communion Meditation January 2024
And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
Rev 14:6-7
There is a glory to new things. Consider the new fridge you purchase that has extra storage drawers or a built in drink station. Consider the new sweater you buy that is free (so far!) from the stain of children’s sticky hands or the holes left by snags. New things are shiny. New things aren’t broken! New things don’t have cracked lenses. New things have new capabilities. There is a glory to new things.
There was a day when the gospel of Jesus Christ was new. There was a time when the blood stains on the cross were not yet dry. There was a day, as on the day of Pentecost, when the evangelist could be confident that he was bringing not just good tidings, but new tidings of great joy. And it was a glorious time for the church, though a glorious time filled with persecution, death, and loss. God had done a new thing, and it was glorious.
But there is also a glory to old things. There comes a point when the scratches and fading and mechanical obsolescence become – not a reason to replace – but a reason to treasure. There comes a point when the Jeep Wagoneer isn’t a fuel sucking behemoth that needs to go the way of the dinosaur, but the incarnation of another generation’s artistry and engineering. The glory of the old is that it has endured.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is, to man’s reckoning, a couple of thousand years old. It has endured the wars of mankind, empires whose names most of us would not recognize, assaults by every false religion and vain philosophy of man, technological advancements of every age, and yet it endures. It is not old: it is ancient. And its glory surpasses the glory of the towering peaks that outspan the lives of man, or the glory of the sun that daily runs its course with joy. Every failed assault has only served to show that the gospel of the Lord Jesus is an everlasting gospel, and that when post-modernism, humanism, Marxism, and every other -ism have been regulated to the dusty shelves of niche academia, the gospel will be as bright and glorious as it ever was.
But like the double helix of DNA, the gospel is both old and new. It is as old as our Eternal Father and yet as young as the risen Son. It is a two thousand year old foundation for Western civilization, and yet it is as fresh as new fallen snow. Our ancestors died clinging to the old rugged cross, and the old rugged cross is still saving sinners today. Those who are renewed by the gospel and those who make the gospel shine anew in every generation are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.
So come taste anew the old, old story of Jesus Christ, until He comes and makes all things new.
Nathan Writes 