April 22, 2016

Scripture Reading: Revelation 21:1-6

And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. –Revelation 21:4-6

When I see the date April 22, I think of 89er’s day. If you are not from Oklahoma, you most likely have never heard of it. What is now the state of Oklahoma was once parceled out to be the depository of American Indians whose existence was in the way of our pilgrim’s progress toward Manifest Destiny. In all honesty the land where Oklahoma now exits was not even a select place for the plains Indians who already lived nearby. They occasionally wander in for a hunt now and then but few every really designated it as their homing place. The very center of the state was never allotted to any tribe and went by the name unassigned land. On April 22, 1889 this undesignated land was opened for settlement by non-Indians through a land run. It was marked off in plots of 160 acres each. The first person to get to the stake and turned it in got the land. It was theirs for the keeping if they lived on it and developed it for five years. Thousands ran in the run including Europeans who came to the United States to escape a potato famine, the children of homesteaders in neighboring Kansas, and freed slaves among others.

The 89er’s day celebration is held in Guthrie each year an includes a big parade, carnival, and rodeo. It celebrates the endurance and fortitude of those pioneers most of which were marking a new beginning not unlike the Israelites streaming into the wilderness out of Egypt.

Our lives are full of tragedy and resilience, of winners and losers, and of creating something out of what appears to be nothing. Isaiah 43:19 says, I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. I will never believe that the God of love every intended for any peoples to succeed at the expense of any other peoples. I will always believe that God wants the best for all God’s creation. God expects us to live into that reality, but praise God for being a God of new beginnings when we have another opportunity to live our love.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us when our quest for better lives leads us to lose sight of the better lives of all. Help us realize your new thing today. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.