But it's not just in movies; it's in music, too. I'll give just one example: the song "Hallelujah." It's consistently found its way onto the soundtracks of some of television's most popular shows (including Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, and The O.C.). Most think the gorgeous ballad is a Jeff Buckley original from 1994. No, it was written and performed ten years prior by Leonard Cohen. Since Buckley crooned it into popularity, check out Wikipedia's site: over 50 artists have covered the 23-year-old song and its soaring lyrics.

Seeing as we're in the season of politics, consider this: pundits are saying the Democrats need to find someone with the spirit of Bobby Kennedy; the Republicans, their new Ronald Reagan.

Everywhere you look in culture, the old is being made out as something new, and people are buying what folks are selling as if they've never seen or heard it all before.

What does this have to do with preaching? I'm sure there are a lot of places I could run with this (discussions of wineskins, resurrection, the kingdom, and the like will be saved for another day). I find myself returning to a theme we discussed at length in the last few months on the site: doctrine and theology. I think we shy away from doing much with matters that seem to have a bit of perceived dust on their clothes. "That seems so yesterday," we say. "Great for Nicea, but I'm in Chicago." We assume, at times, that people now want "pop culture, pop psychology, and personal values" (as Wayne Shaw put it in our interview with him). We think our listeners want something new, something that tickles their ears and leaves them breathless. But it seems, if I am to read culture correctly, that that which is seemingly old and outdated may do quite a good job of doing the things we hope for as preachers. Things as old as doctrine and theology and the Old Testament itself have been pushed into the corners and through the cracks long enough that they actually seem new when we finally get back around to them.

We may have to dress it all a little differently. Trust me, the Transformers of today are a tad bit different from the ones I knew in my childhood. But they're still Transformers. The story is still there. The song is still there. The spirit is still there. The text and theology that Rob Bell preached from Leviticus hasn't changed; he just added a live goat, and the whole homiletical event ended with people erupting in cheers and tears.

The Incarnation was many years ago. The ideas of law and grace are graying at the ears. Though it's a now and not yet issue, eschatology even seems to be showing signs of age. But no matter; they're still just as startling and thrilling as ever. And I certainly don't mind the old, old Story with its "old" nooks and crannies of deep, doctrinal issues. It seems new to me just about each and every day, really. So I think I'll preach it all again, just like the preachers before me did and the preachers before them, running all the way back to the earliest of apostles and church fathers - when it really was new.