February 23, 2003
By Jack Price

There is a movie out right now in which the main character faces beginning an extended prison sentence for dealing drugs.  On the eve of incarceration - trying to make sense of his life, and perhaps trying for a new beginning even as his freedom was ending, he makes contact with his estranged father.  I believe it is called The 25^th Hour. 

The biblical prophet proclaims, "God is about to do a new thing."  He's probably talking to the residents of Jerusalem on the eve of their imprisonment - their captivity and exile at the hands of the Babylonians.  That "new thing" is a challenge to those people to re-affirm their faith in Yahweh and re-shape their understanding of God's nature and purpose - a challenge to expand and deepen their faith in response to a new understanding of what God is doing.  "God is about to do a new thing!"  So I wonder, "What's new with you?"  "What's new with me?"  God is doing a new thing.  "Are we getting it or what are we missing??

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing."  A new thing!  Is there ever really a new thing?  The writer of Ecclesiastes did not think so when he wrote, "There is nothing new under the sun."  Scientists agree, telling us that the sum of matter is constant, the number of molecules in the universe neither increases nor decreases.   Everything is recycled.  Nothing is really new.  Sometimes when I watch the Grammy Awards I am tempted to agree.  The Christian faith and the Bible both promise us there is "good news."  Are you seeing it?  What is really new?  What are we to think of this promise from the book of the prophet Isaiah:

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.

  I am about to do a new thing."

            To the people of the sixth century before Christ, God's "new thing" had been the exodus from Egypt, freedom from Egyptian slavery 800 years earlier.  God created a new people led by Moses and then by Joshua.  God gave them identity as God's chosen ones.  But that had been 800 years before. In the approaching exile of these chosen people to Babylon, only the eyes of faith could see in this new experience of slavery a new exodus, a new thing God was about to do.

            The chosen people of the Old Testament were chosen simply because God chose them; not for honor or recognition but for the purpose of sharing their experience of God with other nations and people.  By the time of the Babylonian captivity and exile, the Israelites had grown to think of themselves as special, as people that God would protect from ultimate harm under any circumstances.  They had come to think of Jerusalem as God's holy and unconquerable city, and the temple as God's home.  Their theology strangely had advanced little beyond the territorial mountain god Moses had encountered in the burning bush.  Newness is not happening in Israel.  The God of newness is strangely absent from the life and faith of Jerusalem.

But Isaiah proclaims, "God is about to do a new thing."   The psalmist laments, "How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?"   This would become the challenge for the people of Jerusalem, hanging up their harps in the trees of Babylon.  The same challenge faces you and me in this era when exile wears a different face, when the forces of modern life isolate us from what we cherish as right and true and just.  The task of each generation is to sing God's song in their foreign land, to see and to ride the movement of God's spirit in the context of new cultures, new languages, and new ways of understanding the world.

Four years ago, Crossroads Church was born.  With the perspective of time and the eyes of faith, we recognize this "new thing" as a God thing.  In four years Crossroads has built a church, developed programs of ministry and mission that have an impact both locally and globally, adopted a set of values, a communications infrastructure, and an approach to governance that gives shape to the ideals of local church autonomy, soul liberty, and the priesthood of the believer.  You have also called a professional and support staff to support and lead you.  You are worshiping God in consistent and authentic ways.  You are encouraging and nurture children, youth, and adults as Christian disciples and are beginning a new house church ministry for enhancing spiritual and numerical growth.

            You are supporting ministries and missions financially and connecting with this community through organizations such as Westport Cooperative services and adopting an apartment to support a struggling family in cooperation with LINC.  God is about to do another new thing through Crossroads Church.  It is called "Adopt-a-Neighborhood."  To tell you about this "new thing," two guests have joined us this morning. 

(Introduction and presentation by representatives from Front Porch Alliance and from the Ivanhoe Community)

(conclusion)

The church proclaims in today's world, "God is about to do a new thing."  On the eve of exile that takes the face of war or of poverty or of hopelessness, the eyes of faith alone can see it "about to spring forth".  "Don't you see it?"  There is "a way of peace in the wilderness of violence and hate.  There are rivers [of hope] in the desert [of despair]."  We serve a God who is always doing new things.  "Gracious God, do new things in us and through us that we might serve you faithfully and growth in your knowledge, your grace, and your love."  Amen.