The Journey 58: Transformed Living

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Read: Luke 5:1-11
Key Verse: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthy things, For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. [ Colossians 3: 2,3]

The Oscar awards have been announced and I was surprised at the movie that won the best picture award. It was won by a French movie “ The Artist” But what is so strange about this movie or in other words, what is there in a movie that enables it to win the prestigious Oscar award?.   It is for the first time in the history of Academy awards that a silent movie has won the Oscar. Can we imagine how in 2012 a silent movie wins an Oscar?. In an age where people are obsessed with 3D movies, and with movies with all sorts of sound effects and wonderful cinematography, where you don't even have to go to a movie theatre to watch movies, where you only need a mobile phone or a tablet to watch a movie, a silent movie wins all the accolades. What a contrast in this age.  But then the movie “ The Artist” speaks to us about an invaluable truth in life. The story in the movie revolves around a relationship between an older silent film star and a rising young actress, in a period between 1927 and 1932, when the silent cinema is slowly moving out and is replaces by movies that has dialogues. The strange part about this movie is also that most of the film itself is silent and is produced in black and white. Just imagine in 2012, in  world that is full of colours, a black and white movie wins all the accolades. This was also the movie that won all the accolades in the 2011 Cannes Film Festival because it was out and out joyous film. What I feel about this movie making an impact today in 2012 or what it teaches is that there are certain things in life that are so precious and wonderful that even if history and time has moved leaps and bounds the relevance of those things cannot be changed, replaced or compromised.
                     I believe transformation in an individual life happens when we are able to discern what is important in life even in the midst of a society and culture that moves so fast, tramples everything in its way and teaches us to throw away our past, our memories, our rich tradition of faith and so on. We are meditating on the life and ministry of Simon Peter. Yesterday we said that if we want to follow Jesus Christ we need to pay an price or make an evaluation as what does it cost to follow the Lord. When Peter leaves his profession to follow Jesus, it was not only forsaking everything but he was taking U Turn in terms of his professional goal. He had decided to follow an unknown itinerant preacher who has just started his ministry, an unknown messiah whom John the Baptist  claimed that “ He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the whole world”. It Jesus was a well known figure or a leader of that times, Simon Peter forsaking everything and following Jesus would have made sense. But here is Simon Peter following a person without knowing his antecedents, nor his type of  ministry. For people like us who live in time of today where we are very calculative and always looks at life in terms of profit and loss, this  move of Simon Peter cannot be comprehended by our mind. This move of Simon Peter is a transaction that incurs heavy loss to the family of Peter and that is what is our conclusion. But I think in life everything cannot be valued on monetary terms. The joy of companionship, the joy of fellowship, the joy being together as a big family, the joy that one gets when one is able to do ones job purely as a passion…….. These are things that cannot be replicated nor can you get these things through money.
It is important for us to remember that there are many things in life that even when time passes on the values of those thing still remain precious and over the years priceless. Hold on to those things in life that you feel that are priceless and not on to things whose value diminishes in a day or two. That is what our Lord teaches us to. Value the eternal not the temporary. [Col. 3:1-6; 2 Peter 1:10,11; 2 Thess. 1:8,9].
What are the priceless things that you have in life?......That will be an indicator in the way transformation is happening in our life.

Let us Pray: Dear Lord there are times when we run for those things in life that the world offers which are transitory in nature. But thank you for teaching us that what is valuable in life are those that are eternal in value. Amen

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