Of pussycats, Polaroid
cameras and the new Jerusalem
What's new
pussycat? Whoa, whoa, whoa
—1965 song by Tom Jones
We all know what a “pussycat” is. But what about the word “new”?
Let us go back a bit farther than the mid-1960s, to New Testament times, and
the input of William Barclay. He was a prolific New Testament scholar, best
known for his easy-to-read commentaries on the New Testament. He points out in
his commentary on the book of Revelation that the Greek has two words for new: neos
and kainos. Neos means something that’s new at this time, but like
lots of other things: a new car, a new umbrella, a new door mat. In a while it
will stop being new. Kainos, on the other hand, refers to something that’s
unlike anything that’s come before. Think of inventions like a Polaroid camera,
a jet engine or artificial intelligence. These are things without precedent.
Their “newness” is inherent in what they are.
Barclay says that kainos is used several times in
Revelation, to refer to the “new Jerusalem,” “a new song,” and the “new earth.”
These will be unlike anything we’ve seen before.
So what does that mean for the “new year” that is mere hours
away as I write this? We know that in many ways this new year will be like
others we’ve experienced; soon it will stop being neos. But what about a
kainos new year? Might this be a
new year that is somehow unprecedented, marked by unimagined qualities? And is
that “newness” something we can usher in or that we need outside forces to bring
about? Consider asking God for a kainos year, one with unprecedented
blessing.
However you respond, you can at least bless people with a “happy
kainos year,” with a deeper understanding of “new.”
Then, what of the words “happy” and “year”? Oops, we’ve hit
our 300 word limit…
[300 words]
