before and after – The Faith Cafe

We all love before-and-after transformations, don’t we?

The dramatic TV makeover that transforms a Plain Jane into a femme fatale.

Or the renovation that turns a dated, nondescript room into something fit for the pages of “House Beautiful” magazine.

But TV shows and magazines aren’t the only places to find dramatic makeovers.

There are astonishing before-and-after changes in the Bible, too.

One example of this is found in Peter, the brash, impulsive disciple of Jesus. A bit hot-headed, Peter was often afflicted by “foot-in-mouth” disease.

When we first meet Peter, he’s working as a fisherman. When Jesus provides the group with a miraculous catch of fish after they’d worked all night and caught nothing, Peter is scared. He says, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” ((Luke 5:1-10)

The demonstration of Jesus’ holiness and miracle-working power leaves Peter shaken.

Another snapshot of Peter is seen when he and the disciples are in a boat with Jesus. A storm whips up and they are afraid for their lives; Jesus, however, is asleep. Peter and the others wake Jesus up and say, “Don’t you care that we’re about to die?” (Matthew 8:23-27)

The prospect of imminent death rattles Peter.

Our last view of Peter occurs when Jesus has been arrested. Peter skulks around to see what will become of him while at the same time trying to disassociate himself from Jesus. When a of couple servant girls insist that he was definitely a friend of Jesus, Peter doesn’t have the courage to admit it. (Matthew 26:69-74)

The possibility of getting in trouble compels Peter to clam up about the truth.

But what a difference a day makes!

I’m referring, of course, to Resurrection day!

Image of Anno Domini inscription on Windsor Castle, England, by Leo Reynolds via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

It’s natural to divide your life into “before” and “after,” isn’t it?

We mentally calculate whether something happened before or after certain important events in our lives.

We might say that such-and-such happened before we moved to Boston, or after we got married. We may recall that another thing happened after we had our son but before the twins were born.

Ancient cultures did something similar. Those with monarchies would mark events in relation to what king was on the throne at the time. They’d say that something happened in the 9th year of the reign of King so-and-so.

Certainly, most of us will divide our lives into pre-and post-pandemic eras. March of 2020 was a clear demarcation point between our previous “normal” life and one dominated by COVID-19.

The dividing lines of our lives will be different for all of us, but what most of the world has in common is the use of the same calendar system to mark off years. This system has its own before-and-after pivot point.

For instance, most of us just celebrated the start of AD 2022.

What does the “AD” mean, anyway? Or “BC” for that matter?

The Faith Cafe

Tag: before and after

The Ultimate Makeover

Create Your Own BC/AD Pivot Point