Forcing the New Into the Old

Modify what we already had made, or build a new one? The only difference in this year's Science Olympiad requirements from last year, was the size of the trebuchet-- ours was 10 centimeters too big in all dimensions. Still, it had been a great trebuchet, shooting as far as the National winning treb. I saw no need to scrap it altogether, and it seemed to me,  time wise and cost wise, this was the best option.

My husband, Arvo, would be the one working with the kids since this part of the coaching involved the use of power equipment that could remove a body part before you can say "ouch". My team was skeptical about rebuilding. However, in the end, they agreed to give it a shot. It is still early enough in the season that if it didn't work, we could build a new one. They could devote all their creative energies then to building an ingenious Trebuchet flinging arm using advanced calculus and physics to determine the perfect arm design. And if that failed, we could fall back on the tried and true: luck.

From the beginning, things did not go swimmingly. Asherel had covered our old treb with beautiful duct tape designs. We had been very proud of how our treb had been by far the prettiest treb at the State contest. However, the duct tape covered the screws that we needed to unscrew to dismantle the treb in order to chop it down 10 cm.  She and Ben had to first cut off the duct tape around each screw.  They had hoped to cut down the size with minimal dismantling, thus chose to cut out the middle of each of the treb's legs. It seemed, in theory, like a very good idea. The reality (like always!) was not quite so wonderful. The top of the legs must have been slightly off from the bottoms of the legs, and it was very hard to get a completely clean, parallel cut. Thus now, the treb legs didn't quite line up. We think we can shim, and glue, and bolt in such a way that it might work. We are willing to put one more day into trying, but the full afternoon of a Saturday wrenched from the talon grip of leisure time ended a little disappointingly.

Sometimes, you can't force the new into the old. Jesus knew that. He has a wonderful parable just on that very topic! He tells his disciples that they can't pour new wine into old wineskins. If they attempt to do so, He advises, the old wineskins will burst and all the wine will be wasted.  I pondered this while I was guzzling new wine after our day of Trebuchet dismemberment. I could see His concern in not wasting one drop of wine, however I think the disciples, being poor men were interested in frugality. Wine skins were not easy to make.


This is the conversation the Bible did not record:
"Jesus, what about the proverb 'waste not, want not?' We have oodles of these old wineskins. Surely you are not telling us to toss those away just because they are a little cracked?"
"That is exactly what I am telling you. HINT: think fermentation. What do you think will happen when we pour that new wine in the old skin?"
"We save money and can put it towards that new Ferrari I have my eye on?"
"Remember, I never teach you things on a purely physical level. There is always a spiritual message."
"Yeh, money grows on trees, at least for you. Remember when one is not God, money is a little harder to come by. Let us just give the old skins a good old college try."
"I will put it to you plainly just this once. Scribe, please don't record this in the Book. I prefer my people try to figure it out for themselves. The lesson seems to stick better. Ok you thick headed disciples, listen up. The old covenant is represented by those old wineskins. This is the covenant where if you are perfect, you get to be with me. But if you are not, you have to keep repenting and sacrificing to try to restore my good favor. Let's have a show of hands on which of you perfectly followed my old Covenant laws? I thought so. Now, the new wine is the New Covenant- the covenant of faith, where the one atoning sacrifice of Jesus is the only one you need for all eternity. You can't go back to the old Covenant of working towards God, when the new better way of faith in God's perfect, substitutionary sacrifice is bubbling up. The law is no longer external...it is now written on your very heart. Yes, Thomas, you have a question?"
"Does that hurt?"
"Well of course it does, but believe me, it hurt Me, more than it will hurt you. You will have to give up some things, but there is no gain without pain."

The team and I looked at the dismantled Trebuchet.
"I don't think this is going to work," said Ben.
"Maybe not," I agreed, "But let's give it the old college try!"

Hebrews 8

¹ Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, ² and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.  ³ Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. ⁴ If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. ⁵ They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”^{[a] 6} But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.
 ⁷ For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. ⁸ But God found fault with the people and said^[b]:
   “The days are coming, declares the Lord,
   when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
   and with the people of Judah.
⁹ It will not be like the covenant
   I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
   to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
   and I turned away from them,
            declares the Lord.
¹⁰ This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
   after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
   and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
   and they will be my people.
¹¹ No longer will they teach their neighbor,
   or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
   from the least of them to the greatest.
¹² For I will forgive their wickedness
   and will remember their sins no more.”
 ¹³ By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.

A Polka Dot Rainbow

I missed midnight last night. I tried, but the lingering nausea of my flu did me in, and I had to crawl to bed long before the Waterford Crystal ball was doing its dance in Times Square. But in the morning, while the rest of the sleep deprived world snored, I crept out and peeked in my daughter's room. She sleeps in a bunkbed, which impedes the ease of my seeing her cherubic face. However, I wanted one of the first beautiful things I gazed upon on this morning of a new year to be her. As I peered in her quiet room at the peaceful tangle of sheets, I saw her giant multicolored polka dotted bean bag chair on the bed, obscuring her face from my vision.

It occured to me, as I sat down to my Bible study and coffee that that was a little strange. Why had she lugged her giant bean bag chair up onto her bunk bed? She only had about 6 inches clearance to the ceiling so it was certainly not there to sit on. I was sure that when midnight struck, Arvo would have sent her right to bed. We were not even sure that in her sickness she should be staying up til midnight, but she was so anxious to do so that we acquiesced. So why, at midnight, had she dragged that polka dotted monstrosity up to sleep with her?

Seeking God is like a treasure hunt. Each day, He puts clues before me, and my goal is to find the most sacred message I can from the most mundane symbol. I saw in the polka dotted bean bag chair, hoisted to its perch, the perfect opportunity to wring a drop of holiness from a dry and weary rag.

Oftentimes, the Bible itself will grant me elucidation. However, that simple path was denied. "Polka dot" is not in the Bible. Neither is bean bag chair, though of course, beans are mentioned. None of the references to beans seemed to have the right joyful connotation to ring in a New Year, however. While searching for the Hebrew or Greek root of polka-dot, a song kept going through my head. I had awoken with that song in my head, and it had sprung out of nowhere. It is an old song, written the year after I was born, and I remember singing it growing up, always sobbing as I reached the last few selfless lines.
"I wish you bluebirds in the spring, to give your heart, a song to sing.....and then a kiss, but more than this, I wish you love.......
My aching heart and I agree, that you and I could never be, so with my best, my very best, I set you free.
I wish you shelter from the storm, a cozy fire to keep you warm, but most of all when snowflakes fall,
I wish you love."

Why God are you sending me a vision of a polka dot chair in the sky, and a song about setting someone free in love? I knew there was a connection...connecting the dots.... connecting the polka dots.........
When I had awoken that morning, the line about setting free played over and over in my head. I had thought it was that I was to stop worrying about my adult children, that I was to set them free to a life that would entail suffering, that I could not keep trying to protect them. But the beauty of the polka dot bean bag chair kept bumping up against that message. It was a rainbow of color in the sky.....and my child nestled by it, peacefully sleeping. And then I knew what God was telling me. I was set free. We are all set free.
"Whenever the rainbow appears in the sky, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures...." Genesis 9:16
"For this reason, Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance- now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. " Hebrews 9:15
There it was! The link! New Year's Day, the leap from the old to the new. The old Covenant, symbolized by a rainbow of color( a polka dot bean bag chair in the sky), the system of obedience and sacrifice which we could never do perfectly yet with a promise that we would not be destroyed, to the New Covenant sealed with the final sacrifice of Jesus, which was perfect and set us free forever from the penalty of sin. The old Covenant was the promise, and the New Covenant was the fulfillment.

I am not certain Asherel was thinking about all of that as she hoisted the polka dot bean bag chair up into her bed. I am sure she will tell us some logical reason for doing so when she awakes, but I am going to keep picturing a polka dot rainbow in the sky and being set free by the love of a God with a wonderful sense of humor.