sexta-feira, 24 de junho de 2016

A NEW THING

I am doing a new thing!
Isaias 43:19a (read 43:18-25) NIV

During the time of the prophet Isaiah the people were barred from returning to their motherland. They were at the mercy of the powerful of the world, without friends and condemned to insignificance. Isaiah used poetic language: “paths and fountains in the desert”, “roads and rivers in drylands” and “the praise of animals” to comfort them.

The prophet said that sufferers should not get attached to things of the recent past. Something new was going to happen! This time God was going to use the pagan king Cyrus, the king of Persia, to release them and allow their return home.

Nature is full of examples of reverses.

For 130 million years dinosaurs ruled the earth and seemed unbeatable. Mammals existed, but were limited to small creatures that could survive hiding in holes and under rocks and fallen trees. But 65 million years ago there was a global catastrophe that destroyed dinosaurs, leaving the land free for mammalian development from which evolved primates, including Homo sapiens. The all-mighty fell and the insignificant took their place [1].

Human history, too, is a series of turn arounds.

About 2500 years ago the inhabitants of northern Europe were divided into tribes with primitive technology. "Civilization," the Greek/Roman culture, which ruled that the ancient world was focused on the area of the Mediterranean Sea. Today, those primitive tribes are the owners of a technology that has come to dominate the world, bringing globalization with all its benefits and aberrations.

In both nature and in human history the powerful are destined to fall and disappear with the insignificant and weak rising to take their place, probably repeating the same errors!

Never before in human history has there been so great an inequality between rich and poor. The richest 0.001% of the people in the world has together 30% of the world’s wealth and the poorest 99.9% has only 19%.[2] A large segment of the world population lives in a state of misery, with no prospect of improvement. Their situation is aggravated by the power plays of major economic powers that control politics and the military. In Brazil the situation is little different with the landless, homeless and jobless having small prospect of escaping their situation. The economic system uses technology which replaces the workforce with machines and electronic equipment. This increases profits for the wealthy and contributes to the growing inequality between the economic classes.

The current world needs "something new". The "deserts" are in need of "fountains and paths" and "dry land" of "rivers and roads". This text from Isaiah gives hope that something new can come to liberate the oppressed from their oppressors. Thus far things seem to be getting worse, but, who knows, there may be something new coming up that we can be thankful for.

We can only do our best and hope.

[1] Many scientists say that birds are descended from dinosaurs.

ISAIAH 43:18-25 – NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV)

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.
The wild animals honor me,
    the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,
     the people I formed for myself
    that they may proclaim my praise.
“Yet you have not called on me, Jacob,
    you have not wearied yourselves for[a] me, Israel.
You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings,
    nor honored me with your sacrifices.
I have not burdened you with grain offerings
    nor wearied you with demands for incense.
You have not bought any fragrant calamus for me,
    or lavished on me the fat of your sacrifices.
But you have burdened me with your sins
    and wearied me with your offenses.
“I, even I, am he who blots out
    your transgressions, for my own sake,
    and remembers your sins no more.



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