All Things New

Once upon a time, there was an egg, a single cell, an ovum of a human being. She had all the essential components of life, yet it was not enough to make her a whole person.

Then came another cell—tickling, tapping, knocking on her outer covering. He had aimed his touch so precisely that she gladly opened her cell wall and welcomed him in.

Instantly, her entire chemistry changed. Hormones and enzymes flashed from wall to wall. Her covering, once so open and vulnerable to invasion, sealed forever against further intrusion. She became his, alone.

The newcomer took all that was him and wound it like a spiral around all that was her, their DNA dancing and clinging together like a double helix. The two became one new and complete human being.

Together they passed through the narrow tunnel to life that she could never have navigated on her own and transferred from a dark womb into a bright world. She felt herself land in warm, open hands as they broke through the darkness—hands that scrubbed away the remnant of her of life in the womb. Wrapped and comforted, she warmed to the celebration surrounding her arrival.

Day by day, she discovered a new keenest to body parts she’d only minimally used in the womb. She’d been able to tell the difference between extreme darkness and light before. Now, brightness and color flooded her eyes. She’d always heard rumors, detected vibrations, of another world from that secret place. In this new world, her ears resonated with clear sound, music, laughter. Life had a fragrance and flavor and texture she’d never known before.

She (no, they) had been born.

*          *          *

Once upon another time, there was a breath, a puff, a spirit of a man—as invisible as the wind, but just as real. He contained all the essentials of humanity—he could be moved by compassion and anger, he could rise in joy and plunge in sorrow—yet, he wasn’t fully alive, completely whole.

A wind from heaven came rattling, shaking, trembling against the door of his heart. It blew against it with a rhythm so precise that the man unbolted every lock to welcome the wind of God across his threshold. The whole atmosphere of his heart changed as God’s jet-stream rushed in. Gratitude and relief and love flashed like lightning from the man’s head to his toes. He became impervious to any other loves but this one. God’s Spirit wrapped itself, like a spiral, around all that was human in him. They danced and clung together until their two spirits became one new and complete person.

He was lifted in God’s whirlwind and delivered through a narrow gate that had been inaccessible to him before. Together they passed from his old way of life into a bright new one. The residue of his aloneness was washed away and the noise of welcoming celebration filled the air.

Gradually, he realized a new purpose to his life. He’d known something about right and wrong before. Now his capacity to distinguish between good and evil brightened day by day, as he was illuminated with a new ability to understand. The sound and fragrance and flavor and texture of life, lived in the current of God’s breath, became real and wonderful. He’d been born again.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV).