A lot of thoughts for the day spend several paragraphs talking about the news and then say 'It's a bit like that with Jesus' or similar. Recently I've been starting with the spiritual bit immediately and then relating it to the news as we move on. Anyone got any views?
Today's, as delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning:
One of the responses we read in the Bible to Jesus' teaching is that it astonished people. Sometimes because he accompanied his words with miracles; on other occasions because he carried authority - an authority people hadn't seen before.
It took something pretty amazing for new teaching to take hold, but take hold it did.
You see people don't like new stuff. We don't like change. Never have. Be it bus timetables or invisible fences for cows, concerts on the downs or arenas in the town. We are suspicious of the new and can be quite quick to jump to the conclusion that it will be worse. We need to be very dissatisfied before we seek change.
The gentle liturgy of the breakfast show washes over me, daily. M5 slow. Hicks Gate roundabout busy. Temporary traffic lights on the - you fill in the gaps. I wrote this yesterday.
The new information is wrapped in the comfortable and familiar style. If Joe tells me the city is clogged up it doesn't feel so bad.
We love familiarity, and therefore even explain the new in terms of the old. Apparently, pitching the Alien film franchise, the screen-writer's stroke of genius was to describe it as 'Jaws, (beat) in space.'
What did people say about Jesus? Are you John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets come back? Are you the new Moses?
No, says Simon Peter, he's not the new anything, can't be explained in terms of the past, he is the Messiah. The promised one. Something completely different. Unfamiliar. The future.
Get used to it.
Don't agree? Your presenters will gently and reassuringly tell you how to call, tweet or text.
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