I’m one of those who’s a sucker for Fall. I start thinking about getting out Fall decorations and having the first pumpkin spice latte around the middle of August. And, even though it happens every year, when I first see a maple tree with leaves that are turning, I act as if it’s the first time I’ve ever seen it.
It’s the same phenomenon that happens every year. As days shorten and temperature drops, trees stop producing chlorophyll, the thing that produces and maintains the green color. In a way, Fall exposes the actual color of the leaves. It’s a familiar, predictable process. And yet it hits me like I’ve never experienced it before.
I could easily ignore it. I could aim my attention elsewhere, and just let Autumn be nothing more than seasonal white noise. But I choose an expectant posture toward something I’ve seen before and yet I anticipate seeing in a whole new way. The variable is me.
Why do I do that? Is there some wiring in me that wants to experience something familiar as if it has never been experienced before? Am I designed to have that kind of hunger? Is a “just the same old same old” approach to things in fact not the norm?
The Bible constantly witnesses to a God who makes all things new. In part this means that things we think are predictable, understood, and contained become like we’ve never known them before. Revelation 21:5 records, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!” The Greek verb communicates on-going action; something that is continually surprising and never finished. It is a newness that is unbounded by our limitations of time, space, and human familiarity. Elsewhere God says, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19.) It’s not that God isn’t doing something new all the time. The question is whether or not I am paying attention to it.
For those who follow Jesus, what if we approached regular worship, for example, the way some of us approach Autumn? Yes, we’ve experienced it before. We know there will be songs, prayers, and proclamation. If we’re in liturgical churches, we know what the liturgy will be like. What if we saw worship not as a worship element checklist? What if we came with expectancy? What if we entered worship asking, “I wonder what new thing God is going to do this time?” How would it be different if we approached God made known in worship as if for the first time?
I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.
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