What’s new?

by Linda Macqueen

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Read 2 Corinthians 5:16–21

- Every Thursday night, our neighbour Warren pops over for a coffee and a chat. Invariably, as he drops a Coles cake on the kitchen bench, he’ll ask, ‘What’s new?’ Rarely do my husband Mark and I have anything to offer. ‘Nothing much,’ we mutter. ‘Same old, same old.’ (Which, in truth, is exactly how we like it, now that we’ve retired.)

In today’s text, Paul is not asking the fledgling Christians in Corinth, ‘What’s new?’ He’s declaring, ‘You are new.’ For them, being a ‘new creation’ was a radical reorientation against the background noise of a pagan city. It meant stepping out of a world built on social status, rivalry and self‑promotion, and into a community where identity rested in Christ’s reconciling and all-embracing love. This was a seismic shift in thinking and living. This was a ‘born again’ sort of new.

By comparison, for lifelong Christians today, the drama of our ‘new creation’ can feel muted – boring, even. Some of us don’t have a compelling ‘coming to Christ’ testimony, or a life of two distinct chapters: before and after Jesus. Yet baptism tells us that our new creation is not measured by the intensity of our conversion story but by the daily rhythm of dying and rising with Christ. Martin Luther captured this beautifully: baptism is not only a past event but also a present, ongoing reality, binding us inseparably to Christ’s death and resurrection. Each day, the old self is drowned, and each day Christ raises us into his life.

Our ‘new creation’ experience probably looks more like a slow, faithful reshaping: a softening heart, a deeper compassion, a willingness to forgive, a readiness to serve without being noticed. But the source of this new creation is the same for us today as it was for the Corinthians. Christ’s love compels us, draws us, remakes us – again and again – until his life becomes our life.

Father God, you have declared that I am a new creation in Christ. I can’t argue with that, even though I don’t always feel new. Forgive me for dragging into my new life some things that belonged to my old life. Please drown these things and raise me up once again to live into the new creation you have made me. Amen.

Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.

Wisdom from a quiet heart

by Linda Macqueen

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… you will only find yourselves fighting against God (Acts 5:39b).

Read Acts 5:27–39

There are a lot of themes we could explore in today’s text, but I can’t miss the opportunity to talk about my second-favourite Pharisee. (Nicodemus is my favourite.) In Acts 5, the apostles stand before the Sanhedrin, accused of defying strict orders to stop teaching about Jesus. The council is furious, intent on silencing these heretics once and for all. Then, into the strained atmosphere steps a devout and highly respected Pharisee. His name is Gamaliel (who was Saul/Paul’s teacher – Acts 22:3).

Gamaliel doesn’t puff his chest out like a peacock. He doesn’t join the chorus of outrage. Instead, he offers a measured, almost understated word of caution: ‘Consider carefully what you intend to do to these men.’ His counsel is simple: if this movement is merely human, it will collapse on its own. But if it is from God, no amount of force will stop it, and opposing it would place the Sanhedrin on the wrong side of God’s purposes.

Gamaliel is not dodging his leadership obligations by sitting on the fence. His counsel is not passivity; it is discernment. It is the refusal to be swept along by fear, anger or groupthink. It is the courage to pause when everyone else is rushing to judgement.

Is it just me, or do you also see a cultural shift towards instant reactions, accompanied by fierce rhetoric? Enemies are easily named. Outrage is applauded. Nuance is dismissed as weakness. And we see Christians, too, drawn into this vortex – quick to label, quick to blame, quick to draw battle lines.

Gamaliel invites us to a different approach. One that trusts God enough to wait. One that believes truth does not need panic to sustain it. One that remembers that the kingdom of God does not advance through force, fear or frenzy, but through the quiet, steady and sometimes off-script work of the Spirit.

Perhaps the most radical witness we Christians can offer today is not louder certainty but deeper calm. Not sharper lines between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ but more space that leaves room for God to act, however and wherever he chooses. Today, my second-favourite Pharisee reminds us that wisdom often sounds like a gentle voice saying, ‘Slow down. Look again. Perhaps God is in this picture.’

Wise and faithful Father, help me to resist the pull of reactive living, of jumping quickly to judgement and outrage. Instead, cultivate in me the quiet confidence that your purposes will stand – whether or not I rush to defend them. Amen.

Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.

Strength for the waiting

by Linda Macqueen

Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.

Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31a).

Read Isaiah 40:25–31

Yesterday, we left the disciples quivering in the upper room, sensing doom. In the coming days, they will huddle in dark corners, fighting twin tormentors: the fear of abandonment and the loss of all hope. We’ve heard this story before. Or one like it.

Hundreds of years earlier, about 7,000 of God’s people were locked up in a foreign land, broken under abandonment and hopelessness, not for a few days or even years, but for entire generations. Into that national despair, God asks a startling question: ‘To whom will you compare me?’ Through his prophet Isaiah, God calls them to lift their gaze from their exhaustion to the One who names the stars and gives them their orders. Renewal for the exiled people of Judah begins not with pulling themselves up by their bootstraps but with a fresh vision of God’s enduring faithfulness and sovereign strength.

It’s against this dark backdrop that verse 31a – the star of countless Christian memes – shines brightly: ‘But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.’ The Hebrew verb here, qāvāh, carries the sense of hopeful, tensile waiting – like strands twisted together to form a strong rope. Waiting on God is not passive or resigned. It is the active, intentional trust of people who bind their lives to his life, drawing strength through the long, dark silences from the One who holds them.

Just like the captives in Babylon, we can grow weary not only from life’s challenges themselves, but also from the pressure to solve them in our own strength. Isaiah reminds us that renewal comes not from tightening our grip, but from being held. Those who ‘wait’ in the qāvāh sense – who intertwine their hope with God’s promises – discover a strength that is not self-generated. We rise, not because circumstances have changed, but because we are lifted up by the everlasting God.

My Lord and God, who calls out the stars by name, forgive me for relying on my own vision, strength and courage to overcome the challenges I face. Help me to trust in you, to wait patiently on you and to hope only in you, until you raise me up again on eagle’s wings. Amen.

Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.