"Great and amazing are your deeds, Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, King of the nations!"(Rev.15:3)

I had a fascinating conversation yesterday with a neighbor who does research at an internationally known biotechnology lab.She's involved in research that will help in the diagnosis and treatment of cystic fibrosis (a genetic disease that affects a person's ability to breath and is often fatal). Somehow, this research involves mice and chunks of their tails from which DNA is extracted, "unzipped" (remember, it looks like a spiral ladder) and "annealed" (joined) to an enzyme which "runs along the single DNA strand" and copies it! It's an amazing process called PCR Polymerase Chain Reaction, which allows scientists to make billions of copies of a DNA molecule in a very short time. And the most amazing thing (to me) is none of it would be possible if it weren't for a bacteria in the geysers of Yellowstone National Park.

Back in 1889, a geologist named Walter H. Weed discovered that the colorful hot springs in Yellowstone were teaming with microorganisms, growing in water too hot to touch. Almost a century later, in 1967, another scientist named Thomas Brock placed a clean microscope slide into the 176 degree waters of Mushroom Pool and found it covered with cells of something he later called "Thermus aquaticus" (which basically means "living in hot water," which is how some people would describe their lives). Then in the late 1970's, a maverick scientist and surfer from Newport Beach, California, named Kary Mullins was cruising up Highway 128 in his Honda Civic from San Francisco to Mendocino, when it struck him that the heat resistant enzyme from the hot-water bacteria in Yellowstone's Mushroom Pool could be used to "amplify" DNA. And so was developed the PCR process, which is used not only to duplicate DNA from mouse tails, but to diagnose genetic diseases, carry out DNA fingerprinting, do paternity testing, detect the AIDS virus, and clone other genes. It's even been used to clone the DNA of an Egyptian Mummy!

It's mind boggling to think about amount of knowledge, learning and discovery that must still exist in the universe. To think of little bits of information; knowledge that seems so innocuous or irrelevant that can be "unzipped", and "annealed" to other bits of information and result in revolutionary and life-changing discoveries. Amazing!

We have so much to learn.

Okay, I admit, I'm still transitioning from two great weeks of study leave, which always sets my synapses to firing at high speed, but it also so happens that this Sunday's message is about learning. Being serious about following Christ requires a desire to grow, a hunger to learn, a teachable heart. Why?  Because we have so much to learn.  Not just about PCR and DNA and a million other interesting facts about the amazing universe God created and entrusted us to (and to us), but about Jesus, about following Christ, about what it means to be a Christian in an increasingly complicated world. 

The Gospel of Matthew has a block of Jesus' teaching that we've come to call the Sermon on the Mount: three chapters that begin with the Beatitudes, include the Lord's Prayer and, end with story of the wise man who built his house on the rock (that's anyone who "hears the words of Jesus and does them"). At the end of this teaching, which Christians have been trying to "hear" and "do" for 2000 years, there's a little P.S. "Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority" (Matthew 7:29).

Do you know what the word "authority" originally meant? "To cause to grow." (from auctor promoter, originator; fr. augereto increase). To come into contact with Jesus and with Jesus' words, to hear and do them, is to be confronted with authority. i.e. to be caused to grow. In other words, you can't follow Jesus, and stay in the same place you've always been.

And the amazing thing is that this growth is possible, even when you find yourself in hot water!

Following (Learning) Jesus with you,

Pastor Erwin

PS: Thanks, neighbor, for inspiring this reflection!