I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
Won’t Get Fooled Again – The Who
We keep hearing it, “the new normal.” My buddy Paul Koch already brilliantly sniffed out this slick line as government cheese coming from all too eager cubicle working bureaucrats. That should be enough to throw that new speak into your new garbage can you just purchased from a privately owned company. But if it is not, I would like to add another nail to the coffin of this school council president slogan. (Yeah you know who I’m talking about… if not check out the great movie by MTV, “Election”.)
The new normal is actually the old normal. As we celebrated Memorial Day yesterday it dawned on me that a lot of the men and women we mourn would have loved to be sitting at home eating cheese curls and thinking they were “doing their part” to serve their country. Now, let me be clear, I absolutely have no problem with people doing what they can to not spread this unknown illness. Also, there is nothing wrong with science changing to keep us informed about what this illness does or will do. That is called science! Most school kids don’t know this anymore because they are taught that science is made up of facts figured out eons ago by bureaucrats in white jackets. Science changes, especially when it is used as a method to understand something new.
So whether you are overly cautious or you believe that life involves living, I don’t care. The one thing you should not accept is the idea that we are living in a new normal. That would be an insult to my grandfather who had to leave his 1-year old child behind to possibly die in yet another European mess. A new normal is an insult to Jonas Salk who developed a vaccine for polio as it had spooked America into being afraid of kids playing in sprinklers. It would be a slap in the face to Jan Hus was burned at the stake simply for suggesting that Christians should follow Jesus command and eat and drink His body and blood!
Only people who have endured years of government brainwashing regarding history would think that this pandemic is weird and that things will never be the same. I get it, every generation thinks it’s special and things are simultaneously worse than ever and better than ever (because they are so smart). Friends, something terrible happens every year! Every year somewhere around the world an earthquake, a famine, a volcano, or in Europe’s case a crazed atheist, kills tens of thousands of people! Even if there isn’t a global crisis, every single human being goes through their own personal pandemic of divorce, loneliness, addiction, betrayal and death.
The aftermath of this pandemic will not be a new normal. It will be the old normal; people living amidst the results of sin and death. Sorry generation prodigy, welcome to life under the sun. You aren’t special and you aren’t getting out of here alive.
Although, there is something else that has become incredibly normal. There was a time when it was absolutely never heard of! God forgives sinners in the name of Jesus. God promises scared citizens of this crazy world that they will rise from the dead. It will be ok. Because while we live in the old normal, a new normal dawned when the Son of Man cried out, “It is finished,” from the cross. He said, “Peace be with you,” in His resurrected flesh. The only new normal that I will buy into is an era where guilty people are given peace by a God who died for them. The only new normal that should ever be encouraged and celebrated at my church will be a community that has hope in the resurrection, loves its neighbor, and lives in the peace of God!
Meet the new Boss! Same as the old Boss! The God who made us, the God who saved us, the God who will be making everything new on that glorious day!
