History

[Pastor Dan Howard]

So I gotta song stuck in my head the other day and then it turned into two songs stuck in my head…. To explain I have to give you a little bit of back story. My daughter is running track at my old high school. That’s my history….ohhh…. my favorite class in high school was history. I was blessed with a string of great teachers who made that class really interesting. My favorite was Mr. Nelson’s Modern American History in 11^th grade. On the very first day he showed us the music video to Billy Joels “We Didn’t Start the Fire” which is a fast paced overview of 118 significant events from 1948 to 1989…. Billy Joels conception to the release of the album. The chorus, for as simple as it sounds, actually holds a profound truth. Billy Joel laments that the events we experience are a set in motion long before our generation came to be and will continue as long as history continues. In fact, in a great act of history repeating itself, the band Fall Out Bot picked up the mantle and did their version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” which picked up in 1989 and brought the song to the present.

As a Christian this song gives us a number of powerful truths:

1.        You can try to pass the blame….but we are born in the fire….we are born in sin…and we have been pouring gasoline on it for generation after generation. We are all born sin cursed…All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

2.       Try as hard as we want to make it true, we are not evolving into something better. Our problems may change, but they also pass from generation to generation. War, disaster, upheaval, corruption, the march of technology, war, media, celebrity, all the things that make us …. Sinful human. It burns as the world turns.

If you read that and are hopeless, that is a very fair response. But as Christians our hope is in something more. We have been rescued from this veil of tears. Not because we deserve it….remember we have been pouring gas on the fire…but because God is full of grace and mercy he sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to deliver us from evil.

 

In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. ⁴ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. ⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God
– Galatians 4:3-7

Jesus came to redeem those under the law.
We started the fire, He delivered us from the fire.

 

What else do I have to say….

-            Pastor Dan