By the Waters of Babylon – Psalm 137:1
Going to church on Sunday morning – it’s a habit for many people. Is it so much a habit that it becomes unreal? Are the rote and routine so familiar that what we hear and say in Church is kind of unreal to us? Can we restore the feeling that every encounter with God in Church is new every morning?
There once was a group of Bible translators who were also evangelists. This group found itself working with an isolated tribe, deep in the jungles of New Guinea. They were sitting around one afternoon, sharing with the members the first part of their translation of the gospels. The chapters at hand were of the genealogy of Jesus. It wasn’t exactly the most thrilling passage of Scripture, thought the translators, but if they were going to do their job right, this was the place to start.
During this session, one of the translators looked up at the group. He noticed something very strange. Every member of the little tribe was sitting at attention, paying attention and hanging on to every word being spoken. Ellud, the father of Eleazer, and Eleazer the father of Matthad, and Matthad the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. [ Matthew 1:15-16]
One of the village elders signaled his desire to speak. “Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that this Jesus you have been telling us about is a real person?”
Same old story….or new every morning?
Image by ianknabel66 from Pixabay
