Wouldn’t Ezekiel be shocked if he woke up this week to discover people living in a time when talk about replacing body parts wasn’t mere poetry but reality? The promise for a new body part first appeared in Ezekiel 36:26, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”
If he spent the week with me he would marvel at my brand new right knee. He would have seen me up and walking in less than 24 hours and back in the classroom teaching in exactly one week. No wheelchair, no walker, no cane needed, just a happy rejoicing spirit in my new gift. I am awed.
Now about that new heart he was talking about. I don’t want to appear greedy but I also want one of those. It would be very nice to have a brand new heart not damaged by decades of collected cholesterol but I am more interested in that poetic heart to which he refers. Wouldn’t it be grand to have a heart like Jesus? To be sensitive to the needs of others, to get angry at things that really deserve our anger and not merely because our pride was hurt is a major goal. Our churches should be transplant centers where we leave the old worn out, useless parts behind and go forth each week with renewed commitment, values, goals and ideas for making the lives of those about us better just because we are near.
Written by Roger Bothwell on September 23, 2008
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574