“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing,  now it springs forth,  do you not perceive it?"  

   Isaiah 43:18-19a

Back in 1974 Harry Chapin wrote and recorded a song entitled All My Life’s a Circle.  It goes like this:
 
   All my life’s a circle,  sunrise and sundown,
   The moon rolls through the night-time till the daybreak comes around
  All my life’s a circle,  but I can’t tell you why,
  The seasons are spinning round again, and the years keep rolling by.

Sounds harmless enough,  but listen to the next verse…

  Seems like I’ve been here before,  though I can’t remember when,
  But I’ve got this feeling that I’ll be back once again.
  No straight lines make up my life,  and all my roads have bends, 
  There are no clear cut beginnings,  and so far no dead ends.

    Chapin claims that life is cyclical…not just the seasons but all of life.  He’s not alone this view.  Elton John echoed this view 20 years later when he wrote the theme song for Disney’s Lion King -   ‘The Circle of Life’.   It’s a very popular notion …and an old one.  It can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece.  The Greeks were fascinated by the stars – they were pioneers in the study of the stars and the movement of the planets (astronomy).  They came to understand that the changing seasons was a result of the movement of the planets…and out of this came the belief that all nature and history was influenced or even controlled by the movements of the planets.  Astrology claims that all of life is influenced and perhaps even controlled by the stars.  Astrology is alive and well to this day  (I won’t ask but I’m sure everyone here knows their ‘sign’ and some even read their daily horoscope ,  playfully perhaps but some take it very seriously) 

This notion that life is cyclical  was so popular it even made it into the Bible – only one book  mind you,   but there’s no mistaking it.   The book of Ecclesiastes is very short and rarely ever gets preached from the pulpit but we all know chapter 3 because it is often recited at funerals…
            ‘To everything there is a season,  and a time for every matter under heaven:   A time to be born,  and a time to die…’

The author of Ecclesiastes holds to a cyclical understanding of life…nature and history go round in circles.  But he is alone in the Bible with that view.  Every other writer has found it inadequate.  Why?  What’s wrong with it?   I think the first chapter of Esslesiastes reveals its own inadequacy -  Listen:
      ‘Vanity of vanities,  says the Teacher,  vanity of vanities!  All is vanity (futile).  What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?  A generation goes and a generation comes,  but the earth remains forever…What has been is what will be,  and what has been done is what will be done’  there is nothing new under the sun.’  Ecc.1: 1-4, 9

If life is a circle it means that there is nothing new under the sun.  We get up in the morning,  go to work or school,  come home,  eat supper, watch Jeopardy,  go to bed and do it all over again the next day.  Like gerbils on a wheel we just go round and round.  If life is a circle,  tomorrow isn’t a brand new day,  it’s just a re-working of yesterday…which is about as exciting as re-fried re-fried beans.  If life is a circle,  everything has a season,  not only in nature but in history… ‘a time for love and time for hate,  a time for peace and a time for war’… and there is something deeply fatalistic about that.  Humans cannot learn from the past and make changes to the future.  And where does God fit into a universe like that?  Did God really create the universe,  set the planets in motion and then adopt a ‘hands off’ policy ever since?

The authors of the other books of the Bible rejected this view of life because they did not experience God not as far and distant but close and intimate.  The God of Israel did not fashioned the earth and the stars and every living thing and then have a hands off policy.  The God of Israel is not only created the world once but recreates it anew each day.  Ours is a God who works within history and within creation,  and the Bible is a witness to that work.  God is not just found in Genesis but all the way through to Revelation and beyond!  God is working even now to see His plan comes into being.  God calls,  shapes, encourages, transforms, renews, redeems, and even enters into history to bring about this plan of salvation to the world.

So the biblical understanding of life is not cyclical but linear.  Life had its beginning in Genesis when God created all that is,  and has its ending in Revelation where it says God will create a new heaven and a new earth and we will all worship God eternally.   And in between is the recorded witness of God who time and again enters history to do a new thing.
And the words of Isaiah in today’s passage are no exception…this message is delivered to the people of Judah at a time of exile.  The Babylonians have invaded Judah,  defeated the army,  captured the people and sent them all off into exile in Babylon.   The Jewish faith was so connected with the Temple that they begin to feel they have no future as exiles in Babylon.   They’re lost…each day is like the previous day…each year is like the last year…and they begin to lose hope.   And then comes this word from the prophet Isaiah:

 
        ‘Thus say the Lord,  who makes a way in the sea,  a path in the mighty waters,  who brings out chariot and horse,  army and warrior’  they lie down,  they cannot rise,  quenched like a wick:   Do not remember the former things,  or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing;  now it springs forth,  do you not perceive it?    I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.’

Isaiah uses the language of Exodus here to remind God’s people that another exodus is about to occur.  The God who led Israel out of exile in Egypt will lead Judah from exile in Babylon).  But then Isaiah says forget about all those past things because I am about to do something new.  What God will do is bigger and better than the first exodus!  Then Isaiah goes on to describe this ‘new thing’ which will be something of a combination between a new creation and a new exodus And there is an urgency in these words that is lost in translation.  “Look,  I am doing something new!  It’s just now sprouting up.  You know about it, don’t you?”  And sure enough it comes true – the people are freed,  they do get to go back to Jerusalem,  they do rebuild the temple and God’s people are given a future again.

God is about to do a new thing.  Do you not perceive it?  Mary of Bethany perceived it.  She knew who Jesus was and what he would do for his people…That’s why she responded as she did.  Jesus and his disciples were invited to diner at Lazarus’ house and that’s when she did it.  She took a pound of costly perfume, pure nard,  and anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her own hair.   It was an act that would foreshadow the sacrifice Jesus would make – his costly life would soon be poured out for others..  Now, Judas was there and ever the bean-counter,  he couldn’t see past the extravagance of the act…he was incensed. ‘This perfume is worth almost a year’s wages – why wasn’t it sold and the money given to the poor?’   And as true as his words are,  they betray his ignorance.   He doesn’t perceive …that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,  that Jesus will die,  willingly go to the cross for our sake.  Jesus defends Mary,  telling him that the poor you will always have with you but not him.  But it’s one of those classic exchanges in John  where Jesus is talking on one level and the receiver can’t understand it because they are thinking at another level.
‘I am about to do a new thing.  Do you not perceive it?’  Perception is the key.  There are disciples today like Mary who have eyes that see and there are plenty more like Judas who have eyes but don’t see …who do not  perceive that God is doing anything in their midst today.   Ask them about life and they’ll say ‘Oh,  the same old same old!’  Nothing new…everything God ever did happened way back in biblical times.

In my last church I remember coming into a committee meeting one night.  It was February and it was cold outside and I was complaining about the cold.  I said ‘I hate February.  If February was banned from the calendar it would be a good thing.   Another elder was there too and he agreed that February wasn’t his favorite month either.  That’s when Chuk Jurchuk spoke up -  he had been diagnosed with incurable cancer and it was living with the uncertainty of that disease.     He said “Well I wake up everyday and I say ‘I’m alive,  I’m upright,  my wife and family are healthy,  and it’s a good day.  To tell you the truth,  I wish February would last forever!”   Now you tell me,  which of us had eyes that see what God is doing even in February?  

     I had a pastor drop by my office this week to tell me about a ministry he was part of in downtown Newport News.  He gave me some literature on it and I promised to read it.  He’s already addressed the Peninsula Presbyterian pastors but I missed that meeting,  so he was catching me up.  In our conversation he learned that I was from Canada and a light went on for him – he’d heard about me already.  He said ‘I’ve heard about you!  Had to go all the way to Canada to find a good pastor!’  And then he laughed and I did too…though not as heartily as he because I’ve been hearing that for 2 years.  I guess there’s some rub in that for some pastors. 

I know the way it’s supposed to happen in this Presbytery -  a young lad or lass goes off to Davidson College,  gets the call to ministry and then goes to Union Theological Seminary in Richmond,  and then gets called back into the presbytery.  That’s been the circle since Adam was a pup in these parts.  Mind you,  Hidenwood hasn’t always honored that cycle.  Rev. McMullen didn’t go to Union,  neither did Miki…and of course,  there’s me.   I went to York University and then Knox College in Toronto.  ‘We don’t know those institutions,  are they kosher?  Is he kosher?’
You and I,  we like circles – they’re safe, predictable and comfortable.  But God doesn’t draw circles,  God draws free-hand.   The ancient Jews knew this and that’s why in their wisdom they rejected the notion that life is a circle and proclaimed that life is linear – not a straight line,  but a line nonetheless…one that goes up and down and all around.  And when we follow it  we are on a journey,  not a spinning wheel.  And if we follow faithfully that journey will lead us to God.

After my heart bypass operation in 2001 I was off work for 2 ½ months.  The week before I returned there was workshop going on at the church,  and John Savage was leading it.   I dropped by to meet him and we had lunch together.  During lunch he asked me what I planned to preach on my first Sunday back.  I said I was going to preach on the things God does for us that we take for granted.  He said ‘Like what?’   I said -  ‘You know that refreshed feeling you have after a good night’s sleep?’   He said ‘Yes’.  I said ‘that’s a gift from God.  I know it is because for the last 2 months I have gone to bed exhausted and even if I’ve slept 18 hours I’ve woke up exhausted.  I must be getting better because now when I wake up I’m refreshed and there’s nothing like losing something to make you appreciate it when it comes back. ‘   And the greatest gift,  of course is Jesus Christ himself….God’s own Son.  Mary appreciated that gift and we need to as well…Sunday by Sunday,  and day by day.  As we approach Holy Week and Easter let us open our eyes and perceive this new thing God has done for us in Jesus.

      Let me end with a reading by Ann Weems from her book ‘Family Faith Stories’:

The story of Jesus Christ is this:
The people of this earth waited for a Messiah…a Savior…
              And only God would send a little baby king.
The child grew and began to question things as they were,
    and the man moved through his days and through this world,
     questioning the system of kings and priests and marketplace.
He was called the New Creation,
                       the New Covenant,
                       the Son of God,
 who brought to all who listened
                                who saw
                                 who understood…change and new life.
But kings and corporations and churches of this world work very hard
       to keep things as they are,  out into forever Amen.
 And so they killed him,  he who said,  Love one another,
                                        he who said, Feed my sheep
   for they didn’t want to share their bread and their wine.
Now the story should have ended there,
  Except that the story has always been
  that our God is the God of the covenant.
The Good News is that in spite of our faithlessness
        God is faithful and Jesus Christ was resurrected,
     For God so loved the world that he gave his only begottlen Son
        That whoever believed  might have everlasting Life.
Listen,  you who have ears to hear.
Listen,  and sit down to bread and wine with strangers,
Feed his sheep….Love one another,
     and claim new life in his name.  

Amen