Pastor’s Perspective – January 2025
“Shake It UP”
I grew up in an era before X-box, PlayStation and hi-def tablets dominated the gaming market. I remember the advent of Pong and simple handheld LED games in which illuminated dots beeped and booped as you attempted to gain a first down while playing in the back row of a study hall.
It was a different time, but those simple games were advanced compared to the games I played as a child. I am not sure how many remember the Etch-A Sketch toy, which was a simple drawing board that used the twisting of two knobs that allowed you to draw lines in an up and down fashion to scrape aluminum powder from a screen and create an image. We spent hours writing our names and creating rudimentary images on the screen, only to erase the entire project with a simple shaking of the toy. The image was so fragile that there were times when it did not survive the joys of showing your friend what you had created.
As I ponder the passing of yet another year, I am reminded that as we grow older, life and memory often have more in common with the old school Etch-A- Sketch than it does the complex and secure devices which save our games and track our past with fidelity and care. Each year our image of family, friends, and church seems to fade and change. People that once dominated our lives are gone too soon, and children that once crawled across the floor now drive away to their own homes.
Our digital images show us our past with extraordinary clarity, while our minds struggle to keep up with the changes and are too often confounded by the changes in our lives. Growth, change and death scatter our expectations and change our dinner invitations every new year. New faces are sketched into our lives, while old faces are wiped away by the dust of time.
For many people technology is the only hope for these losses. We scrupulously preserve old photos, transfer slides to digital photo albums, and send boxes of super 8 film and VHS video cassettes for digital upgrades. But the resolution is never the same, and the images regardless of the advancement of technology always seem less vibrant than we desire.
As we enter another New Year, it is important for us to remind each other that the brilliance we seek can only be rediscovered in the eternal Kingdom of God. What we seek cannot be duplicated or replaced by images or videos (regardless of the clarity or convenience). Holograms and Artificial Intelligence will never replace Jimi Hendrix, Ronald Reagan, or your parents. As we have become a culture obsessed with nostalgia and entertainment, we have forgotten that life in Christ, while both fleeting and short, is only the prelude.
While technology continues to provide more advanced ways to encounter new worlds and remember old friends, it is only in Christ that we can receive new life itself. One day we will be reunited with family that we have only encountered in faded black and white photographs. One day we will gather around a table that is populated by people that we have loved, lost, and forgotten.
Time continues to march forward, but through the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ our past is never forgotten, nor is it meaningless. Our lives are a tapestry of relationships, sacrifices, and love that by the work of God extend into eternity, not due to the preservation of images and names, but through the resurrection power of God.
As 2004 is swept away by the coming of a new year, I am excited for the new images that will be created, the new relationships that will be forged, and the new converts that will join us in heaven for generations to come. Neither our memories, nor ourselves will be wiped away by the sands of time, for in our eternity is secure in the presence of God.
Pastor Dan
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