“The Old Is Gone; The New Has Come”

II Corinthians 5:16-21

Although this is New Years Day it is also the First Sunday after Christmas. Liturgically this is still the Christmas Season. Along with Auld Lang Sine we should have those familiar words from Luke 2 ringing in our ears: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” We should never stop proclaiming and praying for God’s peace on earth, a peace that will be made possible as all people everywhere share goodwill toward each other.

But on this day when we’re focusing on the passing of the old year and coming of the new, I must confess that part of me is still focused on the old. Christ has come. Christ will come again. The Kingdom of God has been inaugurated on earth. In time it will arrive in its fullness.

But there is still much truth to be found in these words from an old Eagles song: “There’s a hole in the world tonight/There’s a cloud of pain and sorrow/There’s a hole in the world tonight/Don’t let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.” The date may have changed a few hours ago at the stroke of midnight; the world is still pretty much the same. There is good. There is evil. There is prosperity. There is poverty. There is political freedom. There is political bondage. Yesterday’s pain and sorrow are still with us. The New Year has come; the same-old-same-old of human history has not passed away. Where’s the Good News in all of that?

From the world’s perspective it doesn’t exist. On the surface of things nothing appears to be new. But beyond the surface there us much that is new. Jesus Christ, who was once derided, ignored, and condemned is the risen Christ, the Christ Triumphant. As it says in Philippians 2, “… he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name…” Or as Paul wrote in II Corinthians 5, “… even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.”

Furthermore, if we are in Christ, the old has passed away and the new has come. We may look the same and sound the same. We will still get sick, suffer tragedy and loss, and will surely die, but something inside us has changed and is still changing. We may not yet be what we were created and called to be, but in Christ, we are no longer what we once were. The old is gone; the new has come.

What happened? Well it all started with God. To use Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of verses 18, 19, and the final words of verse 21: “All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with one another. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah [through Christ], giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins… How? You say. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.”

The theological terms for all of that are incarnation (the Word becoming flesh), atonement (Jesus’ crucifixion and death), and reconciliation (God putting the world square with himself by way of Jesus Christ), and resurrection (the raising of Christ from the dead). In order to put some flesh on the bare bones of theological terminology, I will share with you some words from other places.

First, from “The Confession of ’67,” as slightly edited by me: “The reconciling work of Jesus was the supreme crisis in the life of [humanity]. His cross and resurrection become personal crisis and present hope for [us] when the gospel is proclaimed and believed. In this experience, the Spirit brings God’s forgiveness to [us], moves [us] to respond in faith, repentance, and obedience, and initiates the new life in Christ… The new life takes shape in a community in which [we] know that God loves and accepts [us] in spite of what [we] are. [We] therefore accept [ourselves] and love others, knowing that no [one] has any ground on which to stand, except God’s grace.”

Accepting ourselves and loving others because we know that none of us have any ground on which to stand, except God’s grace, is just another way of saying that we no longer regard each other from a human point of view.

And then from “A Declaration of Faith:” “Jesus Christ is the Reconciler between God and the world. He acted on behalf of sinners as one of us, fulfilling the obedience God demands of us, accepting God’s condemnation of our sinfulness. In his lonely agony on the cross Jesus felt forsaken by God and thus experienced hell itself for us. Yet the Son was never more in accord with the Father’s will. He was acting on behalf of God, manifesting the Father’s love that takes on itself the loneliness, pain, and death that result from our waywardness. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not holding our sins against us.”

And finally from Floyd Filson’s commentary in The Interpreters Bible: “Christ by God’s will so identified himself with sinful [people] that in some way, Paul senses, he became involved with their sin; he helped them not by standing aloof and giving directions as to what they should do, but by entering so completely into their situation that he stood in their place, shared their lot, and grappled with the problem for them. Only in virtue of so vital a connection with [people] could the reverse working take place, in which, on the basis of what Christ did in his death and resurrection, we sinful [people] were enabled to become the righteousness of God, i.e., to receive this righteousness as a gracious gift from God. By righteousness Paul here means more than an externally imputed good standing before God, in which God accepts [people] as though they are righteous, although in fact they are still unchanged sinners. He intends to say that this gift of good standing before God includes a real transformation of life by the power of God. Thus, though [humanity] is indeed transformed, [they] cannot claim credit for [themselves]; this too is God’s doing and gift, a part of the rich grace that [humanity] can only gratefully receive; [they] can never repay.”

To briefly summarize part of Dr. Filson’s words, God doesn’t just love and accept us as we are, he also changes us. “… there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Our self-centered life has been replaced by a Christ-centered life.

But that’s not the end of it. Quoting again from Dr. Peterson’s paraphrase of this morning’s text, “God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.”

Some of you may remember the scene in Scarface where Al Pacino’s character holds up his Tommy Gun and says, “Let me introduce to my little friend.” In a totally different context with much happier results, being an ambassador for Christ – his representative, witness, or evangelist – is simply a matter of introducing people to our beloved friend, the Lord God Almighty. The God who has befriended us in Jesus Christ should be a friend about whom we want to tell folks. Those of us with whom God has reconciled himself are commissioned by Jesus to share this good news.

More than that, we are called to live it. The old is gone and the new has come. We’re different and others should notice our difference in the way we act, especially toward our brothers and sisters in Christ. We can talk about the love of Jesus until we’re blue in the face, but if this love is not evident in our relationships, we’re wasting our breath. God’s reconciled people must become God’s reconciling people. Such people look at the world and humanity in a new way. We look beyond the outward appearances and superficial signs and try to see everyone as a person for whom Christ died.

“God so loved the world, that whosever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” God so loved the world – every man, woman, and child – that he became one of us in Jesus Christ and suffered death on a cross. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Thus we are enabled to be the people God created and called us to be.

As we begin the New Year in a world in which the same-old-same-old is running amok – as we begin a New Year in a world still overshadowed by a cloud of pain and sorrow – let’s not give up on the world. More importantly, let’s not give up on the human race. Let us try to see the world and all who reside in it in a different way. The same-old-same-old is being transformed one person at a time as ambassadors of Christ, people just like us, share the good news of God’s reconciling love; as people who have been befriended by God introduce him to others and invite them to become his friends too; as the reconciled go about God’s work of being reconcilers.

The old is gone. The new has come, and one person at a time, is still coming. Amen.