“The time is coming,” the Lord declares, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the old covenant.”
Jeremiah 31:31-32
When Jesus reached in his pocket and pulled out a new contract from God, the people who had the hardest time accepting it were those who were legal experts on the original contract.
In 1968, Switzerland dominated the world of watch making – owning over eighty percent of the market share in profits.
The Swiss were proud of their watches – and for good reason: they made watches of exceptional craftsmanship.
Yet, in a little over a decade, Switzerland was devastated. Their profit share plummeted to less than twenty percent. By 1988, employment in the watch industry in Switzerland sank from 90,000 to 28,000.
What happened?
The quartz movement watch captured the world’s attention. It was not only cheaper than a mechanical watch, but far more accurate.
The devastation of the Swiss dominance in watch making, however, is not so much tragic, as ironic. After World War II, the Swiss invented a quartz clock. In 1962, a laboratory was established in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, to develop the quartz movement watch. The world’s first prototype quartz wristwatches were displayed in 1967. That year, their laboratory in Neuchâtel entered their quartz movement watches in time trials and won the first ten places for wristwatch accuracy. Two years later, their Beta 21 was available for commercial production.
But the Swiss watchmakers couldn’t adjust to such a radical change. They focused, instead, on their proud history. They had a well-deserved legacy for making fine mechanical watches. They weren’t about to change their way of life for some newfangled quartz movement contraptions.
Switzerland was well-positioned to dominate the world in quartz movement watches, just as they had for so many generations with their mechanical watches. But they refused to invest in the new technology because they had mastered the old so well.
God’s first covenant stipulated that we would be blessed if we were obedient. Since no one was obedient, God announced his new covenant: he would forgive all who looked to him for mercy.
This new covenant, like the quartz movement watch, was definitely a change for the better. The only ones who have ignored it are the self-satisfied: those who are (falsely) proud of their religious accomplishments.
(text copyright 2011 by Marty Kaarre)