WADING RIVER CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

SERMONS IN PRINT

Peter Vibert 1/1/06 New Year

2 Corinthians 5 “All Things New”

Once again we turn the calendar with that strange but apparently widespread feeling that something is going to be different now that it reads 2006 instead of 2005! We call it “New Year” in the hope that it will truly be new in some good way – for us as individuals, for our families, for our church, for our nation.

Where does this strange idea come from? Its roots are, I think, deeply embedded in who we are; in the way God made us. We are a people made in time who believe time is leading somewhere. The historical origins of the “new year” concept are easy to trace. Every ancient civilization observed that each year the sun’s inclination in the sky sank and then rose again, and since the sun was the source of life and light and warmth and growth, it was natural to see the year as a kind of “dying and rising again” of the sun.

So the winter solstice, when the sun reaches its lowest inclination in the sky, became a time of celebration that the sun was about to “rise again,” to be “reborn” after its long autumnal “dying.” Feasts, celebrations, sacrifices, revels were found everywhere. In

southern Europe, in the later stages of the Roman Empire, the growing and now legal church of Jesus Christ confronted the tradition of the Roman feast of Saturnalia, which over the years had become a great debauch. So in the year 336, Pope Julius I declared that December 25 would become not “the birthday of the sun” but “the Feast of the Nativity of the Sun of Righteousness.” Jesus’ birth would be celebrated,

and the winter holiday would be redeemed, starting in Rome. In a few years the church in Antioch joined in, then Constantinople and Alexandria, and within a century the whole Empire celebrated what much later would come to be called “Christmas,” – the “Christ Mass.”

Why did the church make this decision? There was no real reason to tie Jesus’ birth to December – indeed the best guess is that it occurred in the spring near the Feast of Tabernacles. Because in place of the celebration of the reborn sun, which would give new life; the church wanted to point to Jesus the Christ, who alone can truly make things new. He is Son and the Messiah of the God who in the apocalyptic vision of John declares “See, I am making all things new.” The promise of the Father is that in time, through the victory of his Son, he will bring in “a new heavens and a new earth, where God will dwell with his people, and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev 21:1-5)

1) New in Christ

But as the Apostle Paul was quick to recognize, we do not have to wait for “the new heavens and the new earth.” We can have a taste of that newness here and now, because “anyone who is in Christ is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” (2 Cor 5:17). This is a work of God in the present tense. You and I can experience newness now, as millions of Christians have done through two millennia.

It comes to those, says Paul, who are “in Christ.” Who are they? How do you become one of them? There are several parts to it, as Paul spells out in this passage (2 Cor 5:14-21). Foremost is that to be “in Christ” means to have been “reconciled to God through Christ.” It means having embraced the work of Christ on our behalf in bridging the gap between us and God that was created by our sin. A work of God was needed; it was all his work; “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” How did that happen? “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Here is the mechanism of reconciliation – that our sin was placed on Jesus, so that his righteousness could be placed on us. He died, as he said, “for us,” because that is the price of sin. Jesus has paid the debt, settled the account, reconciled us to God. We can therefore become people whom God sees as righteous, because we are “in his Son” – we are united to him in faith and trust, and our sins are covered over and forgiven. We are called to be reconciled to God through Christ – and the appeal is made directly to us: “be reconciled to God through Christ.” It is not automatic, or inherited, or ethnic, or national or cultural. It is a matter of choice, of acceptance, of faith and trust. No-one can compel faith in another, no-one can create faith in another; only God can draw them to himself and call them to be reconciled to him.

The means God uses to call people to himself are clear: his invitation reaches us through the Bible, through words written down by the inspiration of the Spirit so that Jesus would become known to others beside the few who walked with him in the 1^st century. But we notice also that Paul says “we have been made ambassadors for Christ, and given the ministry of reconciliation.” So those who have trusted themselves to Christ are in turn given the task of bringing the message of reconciliation to others, of “imploring them on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” Here, then, is the beginning (tho’ certainly not the end) of being “in Christ”: Being reconciled to God through his death.

2) Compelled By Christ’s Love

But there is more to life “in Christ.” Once we are reconciled, we are “seen as righteous” by God, but we now have to become so in daily living, in practice. That is a lifelong process for all Christians, and it is not until “we see him face to face that we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2).

Some people maintain that you become righteous by following certain rules – perhaps the Ten Commandments, or the Sermon on the Mount. They are nervous about Paul, who seems to have little time for the Law. How will people learn to be good and to do right if you don’t tell them? Paul’s answer, Paul’s fundamental “Christians ethic”, I believe; is wrapped up in the phrase he uses here: “The love of Christ compels us.” This is how we know what to do, and are motivated to do it – by the love of Jesus Christ. That means our loving response to his love for us. That means wanting to please him because he loves us and we love him. I have said before and will repeat: if you do not understand the concept of pleasing someone you love, then you have either never been in love, or have long since forgotten what it means.

Christ’s love compels us to do new things, to love new people. Christ’s love compels us to see people in a new way – not to evaluate them by worldly or human standards, but to see them as God sees them: people made in his image, beloved by him; people for whom Christ died. So human hierarchies, human preferences, cultural differences in styles and tastes and education; our expectations of other people, all have to be put aside because we now see them “no longer from a worldly point of view.” Paul knew that he had even seen Jesus that way in the past: as one more teacher, as one more prophet, as a troublemaker, as a blasphemer – until the day Paul had met the risen Jesus face to face, and had at last submitted himself to the unmistakable authority of the Christ, the Son of God. That had made all the difference, and now he saw Christ in a new way.

Christ’s love compels something more than a new view of people: it compels a new way of life that is “no longer lived for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again.” The Christian life is one that is lived for Christ, as his ambassador and as his servant. It is life that is – if we are truly reconciled to God – finally rid of that compulsive self-centeredness that pollutes all our lives. It is not to say that we no longer have any egos, or that we are mere ciphers. We still have personalities, but they are to be yielded to Christ for his use, and not be vehicles for our own self-advancement, self-assertion, self-defence, self-righteousness.

3) New Life

These are, I think, hard things. At some level, we want newness, but are unwilling to pay the price.

There is a cost to our pride in coming to be reconciled to God. It requires admitting that we are alienated from him by our sin, some of which we know about all too well (but do not like to admit), and a great deal more that we are quite unaware of. Beneath the surface lie great submerged icebergs of self-regard, hyper-sensitivity, needs to be noticed and liked and applauded, burning ambitions, deep insecurities. Some of our subconscious traits may be benign, but some are truly sinful, and we are mostly unaware of them – although other people may not be!

To admit we need forgiveness, reconciliation, and to embrace Christ as our substitute and Savior is more than some people’s pride can handle. If we think of ourselves as basically “good people,” it can be especially hard. But that loss of pride and self-esteem is part of being reconciled to God and made new. It can also be hard to see people in a new light – as already brothers and sisters in Christ, or as those whom God loves and sent his Son to die for, and to whom we are being sent as his ambassadors.

It can be hard to live for Christ and not for yourself. This side of heaven, we are, as Luther so perceptively put it, “at the same time both justified and sinners.” If we are reconciled to God in Christ, we are now and forever “justified,” yet we know that we continue to fall into sin and to bring forth sin from within us. So we need the love of Christ and the power of the Spirit to teach us to live for Christ, and to love others in his name.

It is hard, but nothing can compare to the joy, peace, and hope that comes from knowing that you are reconciled to God, and that your life is now defined as being his ambassador, living for him and imploring others to know him.

If you want the New Year to be good and truly “new,” be reconciled to God, and to other people, and let the love of Christ compel you to live in ways that please him. It may not happen in a moment, but it can unfold over time. One day, people may say about you “Why, he or she has really changed in recent years – they are so much nicer, kinder, gentler, more careful about other people’s feelings, less demanding, less ‘know-it-all’. I wonder what happened to them?”

It’s said that 30 years ago, you could get people’s attention to the Christian Gospel by asking “Do you know where you will go when you die?” Now, we are told, people respond more to the really good question: “If you live another 30 years, what kind of person will you become?” What about you? What about me?

Happy New Year!

Let us pray...