home | contact

Message from Pastor Michelson

A Fresh Page

By Pastor Lowell Michelson

“Out with the old and in with the new.” Nice phrase, except I really like the old.

Our 1940s-era bungalow is filled with old furniture, collected at auctions and garage sales throughout our married life in Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, and Iowa. The well-worn Appalachian kitchen table, the stressed cherry headboard, and the trash-picked front hall mirror transform our house into a cozy home.

And while digital downloads are all the rage, I still enjoy my mom’s college copy of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers Drum Suite jazz album on black vinyl. Giving it a spin on the turntable — crackle and all — fills our living room with the small combo sound that could only be a 1957-era Columbia Records LP.

There is comfort in the old. Nostalgia in the old. The old fits us well and transports us to another time and place, reliving moments and seasons in our lives. We know what to expect with the old. But there can also be pain and suffering in the old. There are scars that leave a trail on us physically or emotionally. There are memories of loss and regret that we would like to release or forget.

“Out with the old and in with the new,” some say. The floors creak and the plumbing leaks. The 33 1/3 albums warp, crackle, and skip. Each needs a renewal or an update. They are better with a little maintenance or restoration.

So it is with us. Transformation, renewal, and new creation are part of our lives. God takes our old and makes it new. But instead of pitching all the old in the garbage, God embraces all that we are and all that we’ve been and creates something new.

The apostle Paul, writing an encouraging letter to Titus, says, “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, Jesus saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to the mercy of God, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:4-5).

Rebirth and renewal. In goodness and loving kindness, God transforms the past by recycling it into what we are becoming. God takes our creaks and warps, and all the other tired parts of our lives and renews them. Like recycled tires and tennis shoes that are converted into pavement for roadways, our histories are melded into a larger fabric of what is to come.

Along with so many others before us, God draws our experiences together so that we might shine God’s love to the world, paving the way for others to experience the hope and peace of God. We share our journey of faith, lives of brokenness and healing, lives of struggle and discovery, so that others might learn of God’s great love.

A song from the Iona Community in Scotland helps me understand God’s encompassing love:

Take, O take me as I am;
Summon out what I shall be;
Set your seal upon my heart and live in me.

I am grateful for the new year. It is a fresh page. It is a time of renewal and new beginnings for each of us. I look back with joy on what has been, but also lean forward, eager to see how God will draw us out of ourselves and into what we can be. What will it be for you in 2008? In the old and the new, God is up to something.

Pastor Lowell Michelson,

  ::