THE NEW AND IMPROVED VERSION OF MAN

                                 

Vol. 1                                                Issue 19

  






                                   
                                                                    

                       JUST DO IT! 
                                           

Do you remember your first car? There is perhaps no other standard for modern day American freedom as the automobile. I don’t think anyone ever forgets his or her very first automobile. My first car was a 1972 Chevrolet Vega, the Motor Trend Magazine Car of the Year.  It was one of the very first sporty subcompacts, and was endowed with one of Detroit’s most innovative features - a motor with a light-weight aluminum block.    My Vega was four-speed stick shift. It was yellow - not sunlight yellow - and not mustard yellow, but a blend of the shade of yellow most often observed on a stop light.

My father purchased it for me from Modern Chevrolet in downtown Winston-Salem one cold February night.  He paid $1750.00 and made me promise that I would pay him back.  I think I still have the record of my payments. To date I still owe about $550.00.   I turned sixteen on April 11, 1973.  So, for three agonizing months, my father took me to the parking lot of Cooks Department Store, and attempted to teach me how to drive a four-speed stick shift.  It was the most patience I had ever observed my father exhibit in my entire life.   We both were determined that I would learn how to operate a straight drive car or die trying, the prospect of which, we came very close to realizing.  I washed and waxed the car almost every Sunday afternoon, and installed a really loud eight-track tape player.  I really loved that car!

This car was with me through High School and part of college.   If it could have talked, I may still be grounded.  I drove my yellow Vega to pick up Kathy Higgenbotham for our first car date.  We went to see the movie, Godfather.   I left the lights on, and the battery died.  My future brother-in-law, on his first date with my sister, came and picked us up.  How embarrassing?! It was the car Greg Alspaugh and I took to Appalachian State College one winter during the gas crisis.  We made it back home on gas fumes by coasting down the mountain from Boone to North Wilkesboro.  I took it with me to college and even though freshmen could not park a car on campus, Al Ray told school officials  his uncle purchased the car for him and using his standing as a senior he obtained a  resident parking sticker for me to use. 

In the summer of 1974, not long after Nixon resigned, the motor blew up on the way to Windy Gap Young Life Camp.  Pam Cranford and I were stranded at the Police Station in Black Mountain, North Carolina for five hours waiting for a ride home. Although at 36,000 miles, the car was well out of warranty, Chevrolet paid for the repairs.  It seems that an aluminum block motor made great sense to the engineer who designed the car until he considered how well aluminum conducted heat.  Unfortunately, aluminum conducted, and retained heat to an extent that no amount of oil could keep the engine cool enough to operate for more than 36,000 miles.  You see my Chevrolet Vega blew up the second time on Interstate I-85 in the winter of 1977.  It had only 65,000 miles on the odometer.  The rods welded to the crankshaft; Brenners Metal Recyclers paid my father $100.00 for the car - it might have been $150.00 if the engine block was not aluminum.  Since then time I have been quite skeptical of the Motor Trend Car of the Year!

So what is my point?  Americans for years have been subjected to countless advertisements for “new and improved” products.  Whether it is the latest stereo, panty hose or dish washing detergent, Madison Avenue advertising executives have conditioned us to purchase the latest, most improved gadget, device or product available.  I bet some of you have a Ginko knife in a drawer at home and some may even wonder how well that George Foreman grill cooks a hamburger.  For my entire life, I have watched as Schick Corporation has improved the razor blade. The engineers at Schick make it possible for Americans to receive the closest shave of any people in the world. Too bad the General Motors engineers did not spend a similar amount of time perfecting the aluminum block engine? !  

As I read C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity for about the eleventh time, it struck me that what he was describing when he talked about Christians as “New Men” was nothing more than another way of describing Christians as  “new and improved versions of man”.   As I considered the notion further, I realized that Paul describes Christians quite similarly as well:  “For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether - his past is finished and gone - everything has become fresh and new.” (2nd Corin.5: 17) In a strange way, it appears that Christians are living, breathing advertisements for this new and improved version of man.  Consider again the words of Paul:  “You yourselves are our testimonial, written in our hearts and yet open for anyone to inspect and read. You are an open letter about Christ which we ourselves have written, not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.” (2nd Corin 3:2-3)

So what is your idea of a new and improved version of man?  If I were to design this creature, this new man could eat whatever he wanted without gaining any extra weight.  He would never lose hair, nor grow hair in unusual places like the nose and ear.  His eyes would be perfect.  His heart would never need bypasses, and his sweat would never smell.  He would balance a checkbook, and say charming things to his spouse.  He would hit a driver straight every time and never miss a four-foot putt for par.  Yes, I would change many things about man, and even more about women, but you get the idea.

Our idea of a new and improved version of man is quite different from  that of our Creator.  God has a different viewpoint entirely. (see Romans 12:2)  He is changing us from the inside out.  We are being changed into something, or somebody, quite different from what we may imagine a Christian is supposed be!   Nevertheless, like it or not, He is transforming us.

So, just what is this new and improved version of man supposed to look like?  What attributes will we exhibit?  What attitudes will we have toward ourselves and others?  How will we know when we begin to change?  What can we do to help in the process?  We may benefit from the process if we stop to consider just what we are supposed to look like when the process is completed.   It would be much easier if God would give us some idea of what type of creature we are becoming.

I don’t know about you, but I have never understood the Beatitudes.  They are a compilation of many beautiful phrases and sermonettes that are pleasing to the ear, but seldom have I considered what they mean.  I remembered memorizing them in Sunday School, but no one ever explained what they meant. It is odd that the focal point of the most important words Jesus spoke to his disciples are never explained in terms that you and I can understand.  With that premise, I decided to teach a few lessons on the Beatitudes.  As I began to understand them, I began to understand some things about being a Christian I never understood before.   I begin to understand some of what it means to be a new creature in the eyes of God.  You see right there in the front of the New Testament, in the words of Christ Himself, is a description of the new and improved version of mankind!  There in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is God’s own description of this new man He is creating in each of us.  It is as if He is speaking to us in the same manner he spoke to the Rich Young Ruler: “So you want to become the creature that God intended you to be?  Then, listen up and I will tell you what you will look like when I am finished with you.”

 I think it is very important for each of us to consider just what type of creature God really intends us to be.  In the Beatitudes we can find a checklist of the new and improved features we can acquire in this new version of man Christ is offering to the world. As we begin to understand the teachings of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, each of us should begin to recognize what God is doing for us.  “[A]ll of us who are Christians have no veils on our faces, but reflect like mirrors the glory of our Lord.  We are transfigured in ever-increasing splendor into his own image, and the transformation comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2nd Corin. 3:18)

The Gospels report that Jesus was an excellent teacher.  He could keep the attention of multitudes even as their stomachs growled with hunger.  His words caused debate among the most learned intellectuals of the day.   He was an inspirational speaker, and a person of great individual magnetism.  People wanted to be where he was.  His disciples literally walked away from their jobs and their families just to follow Him.  He explained the most important theological concepts, not to the most learned theologians, but to the peasant in the street. If we are to grow up in Christ, then as disciples of Christ, it is essential that we understand the teachings of Jesus known as the Sermon the Mount.

The Beatitudes are the center piece of the Sermon on the Mount.  They set forth the essential description of what a Christian is supposed to look like.  Unfortunately, as we translate the words of Christ from Aramaic to Greek to English, their exact meaning sometimes gets lost.  It is helpful that Greek is a very exact and descriptive language.  For example, each  Beatitude begins with the phrase: “Blessed are the . . .” The Greek word used here is “makarios”.  It is a word which means “happy”.  However, it describes special sort of “happiness”. It is a happiness associated with contentment.  It is a type of contentment in which all your needs are met, and you have no reason to want for anything.  It is that “Go with the Gusto” or “Just Do It” persona Madison Avenue proclaims their products to supply.  In truth, it is the type of life most Americans aspire. It is a life of personal peace.  Greeks used the word when they spoke of their gods of mythology.  Greek gods were happy and contented.  They had neither concern for their well-being nor sustenance.  They lived a special kind of life unknown to mortals.  Therefore, when Matthew writes makarios, the sort of happiness envisioned in the minds of the reader of the Greek text is a sort of bliss generally unknown to mankind.  It was as if Jesus is saying: “If you desire a type of happiness and contentment greater than anything this world can offer, then you must . . .” “As you consider each Beatitude, keep this point in mind. Jesus is making a very specific promise to those who follow Him.  He is exclaiming with the boldness of a Nike advertisement that his followers need not be contented with the happiness of this world.  Unlike others, the world is not the limit of the horizon of a disciple of Christ!  He is offering in this world a piece of Heaven itself in the form of a measure of joy unknown to mankind today!  

All we have to do is “Just do it”!