Life Can Never Be The Same - 2nd Corinthians 5:14-21
On a national or global scale, Nine-Eleven stands out as probably the
premier event of this type in my lifetime, and maybe many of yours. Probably second on the list, over the last
ten years would be the financial crash of 2008.
On a more personal level, it may be the loss of a loved one, a family
member, or close friend. Maybe it was medical
diagnosis of an illness such as Cancer, Alzheimer’s, or AIDS. Maybe it was simply a sense of being betrayed
by someone you thought you could always trust.
It could be something entirely different. The kind of times I am talking about are
those things that happen, and after it has happened, we can never go back to
the way it used to be before the event, it can never be the same. Life is forever altered and there is no
pretending it has not.
Consider how our lifestyles and nation have changed as a result of
Nine-Eleven. I remember every once in a
while hearing of someone who was afraid of flying, but now I hear on a regular
basis of someone who is worried about flying, either that the plane might be
hijacked by terrorist or it might crash or both. I hear of folks who won’t travel anywhere
that would require them to fly. Go to an
airport—consider how drastically that security has changed. You used to be able to walk your loved ones
to the gate and wave to them as they walked through the doors to the plane,
then stand by the window and watch the plane as it taxied out and prepared to
take off, no more. If you don’t have a
ticket to get on the plane, you can’t even get in sight of the gates. If you have a ticket, security measures have
become so extreme that we’re not surprised if we hear of a jail-like full body
search or making a baby or elderly grandmother take off their shoes so that
they may be more fully inspected or, as recently as this past week, a mother
who was trying to transport breastmilk back with her for her child who was not
present was told that it exceeded the allowed volume so that the whole amount
was disallowed and dumped. Outside of
the airports, Nine-Eleven greatly affected us.
We used to be a nation that pretty much considered ourselves
invulnerable on our own turf, now security concerns abound. Try going back to Fayetteville after
twenty-five years and driving the same roads you drove for almost five years,
at times criss-crossing Fort Bragg. Many
of those roads are now barricaded or have staffed guard posts. Pre-Nine-Eleven you could go to a NASCAR race
taking pretty much any size cooler you wanted as long as it didn’t contain
glass bottles. The last race I attended,
around 2005, the cooler I was allowed to take in was barely large enough to
take in a six-pack of Diet Mountain Dew.
Visits to New York, Washington DC, and the field in Pennsylvania will
reveal to us simply landscapes and cityscapes that are forever changed—in fact,
we don’t even have to travel there, we can simply watch a movie or television
show that was filmed in or around New York, and you can tell if it was made
before or after Nine-Eleven by the presence or absence of the towers. How we view folks, particularly of
Middle-Eastern descent has been forever changed. In fact, while I know that I quite frequently
saw folks who were Middle-Eastern prior to Nine-Eleven, I don’t know if I ever
paid much attention to them, anymore so that I would have paid to someone who
was African-American, Asian, Native American, or Caucasian. I don’t think many people did, other than
stand-up comedians who would stereotype them with regard to working in the 7/11
stores. It was also unusual to hear much
about Islam or Muslim faith unless someone was taking a course on World
Religion, but suddenly Middle Easterners and Islam became household words and
fears. Nine-Eleven was truly one of
those events where, for those of us alive before 2001, life can never be the
same.
I would suggest, my brothers and sisters, that another life-altering,
never-be-the-same kind of even has happened in many of our lives. It is the event that shattered and continues
shattering our world view making us realize that once we have truly experienced
it, life can never be the same. What is
that event? It is the day we encounter and
truly surrender our lives to the Risen Messiah.
We cannot truly encounter the One who was born and laid in a manger, the
One who touched the lives of the outcast and welcomed them into His family, the
One who touched the lives of those who were sick and hurting and brought them
healing, the One who went to the cross, not to die for His own sins, but for
our sins, the One who from the cross asked God to forgive those who were
killing Him, and the One who walked for from the empty tomb where He had been buried
we cannot truly encounter this One, and not have lives that are forever
changed.
This is what prompted Paul to write: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is
a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Paul knew from firsthand experience that once
someone truly encounters the Risen Christ, their lives are forever changed and their
lives can never be the same—they are a new creation and every that that was
part of their lives has passed away to give way to the new life that comes
through a relationship with Jesus.
Paul knew that Jesus loves us enough to accept us just as we are, right
where we are. I mean he had just been
party to, maybe even overseer of, the execution of Stephen, for no other reason
than the fact that Stephen was proclaiming Christ. If Jesus had reason to ask anyone to be
struck dead on the spot after His resurrection, it would have been Paul. However, the same one who asked forgiveness
for those who were crucifying Him, accepted Paul in the middle of his zealous
murderous actions, and called Him to a new life…and Paul’s life was never the
same. Paul went from being dependent on
his own righteousness and achievement, to understanding that the grace of God
does for us what we could never do for ourselves…He went from condemning anyone
outside of Judaism to being the foremost evangelist to the Gentiles (anyone who
was not a Jew)…He went from focusing on adherence to the letter of the Law to
understanding the role of growth in grace…He went from persecutor to
proclaimer…from divider to unifier.
That same kind of changed life should mark us. We should have a life that is completely
changed once we surrender it to Christ…we cannot be the way we’ve always
been. It doesn’t matter whether we have
grown up in the church or not…when we truly encounter Jesus we will be
changed. I’ll use myself as an
example. I grew up in the church. I was baptized and joined the church when I
was twelve years old. I never used
profanity until I was in college, and yet when I was in college, a ex-Navy
servicewoman told me that she had not her one person use as much profanity as
she heard coming from me. I had grown up
in the church, I was a member in the church, I had been well on my way into
entering the ministry before walking away from it, but to this day, I am sure
that I had not completely surrendered my life over to the Risen Christ. Yet, when I did, he began changing me—one way
was in the language I used, when confronted through my devotional time with the
passage from James:
“...but no one can tame the tongue—a
restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and
Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of
God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and
sisters, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same
opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and
sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield
fresh.[1]
At this
point I can tell you that God has washed out my mouth, not with soap, but with
grace, and that language has been removed from my vocabulary, to the point that
I not only do not use it, but I almost noticeably cringe when I hear it. Anita and I have been known to turn off a
movie that just repeatedly utters one profanity after another. Yet this is only one way that I have found
God take my life when I surrendered it to Him, and refuse to leave me the same
as I was. He has forever changed it, and is still changing it every day.
The same should be for any of us who have encountered the Risen Christ,
and it should be in such a way that when we give Jesus the keys to our heart
and He comes into it, that those around us see a new Creation…a new Creation
that even affects the way that other life-changing events affect us.
Have we been fearful…of planes, terrorists, disease, disaster, death? As new creations of the Risen Christ we live
each day under the assurance that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us
from the love of God found in Christ Jesus our Lord—for if death could not
separate Jesus from God and we are bound to Christ through our Baptism, then we
have the assurance that God is always holding us, no matter what we face.
Have we struggled over whether or not we have enough? As new creations we learn to trust in the One
who feed over five thousand with just a few loaves of bread and fish…and who
provided for Paul in times of hunger and thirst.
Have we focused on our past—on the sins we have committed, the wretched
way we have lived, the ways we have so far away from God we could not sense His
presence? As new creations we leave that
past behind and focus on what lies ahead, pressing forward into this new life
that God has given us, and opening ourselves up to the transforming power of
the Risen Christ.
And yet this “new creation vision” goes beyond how we look at ourselves
and our situations. Paul says if we are
new creations in Christ then we regard no one from a human point of view…as new
creations we begin to look on others through the eyes of Christ.
Have we looked on others with condemnation for their past or even where
they are now? Have we looked at the
person sitting in the pew beside us or in front of us or behind us and seen
“adulterer,” “thief,” “degenerate,” “gang-member,” “druggie,” “gossip,” or “liar.”
Have we looked on others with attitude of superiority or judgment because
of the color of their skin or their ethnicity or their educational level or
their social standing or their dress?
Have we looked on those who have betrayed us or who have hurt others and
already determined they are to be forever outcast?
Have we looked on those who make us uneasy because of their political
stance or their lifestyle or looked with fear or animosity toward those who are
not of the Christian faith—those who are Jewish, those who are Hindu, those who
are Buddhist, those who are Islamic, and already condemned them to Hell?
Paul would say as new creations we cannot view any of these folks that
way anymore. We can never look at them
the same anymore. We have to see them
not through our own eyes or the eyes of the world, but through the eyes of
Jesus—the eyes that look upon each one of those that we named and others and
see a precious Child of God that He died to save, that He rose to give new life
to, that He desires to have a relationship with as they surrender their lives
to Him.
Will they surrender their lives to Christ? Only God himself knows, just as only God
knows whether we will fully surrender our lives to Him. If they don’t, then it is God’s role and
God’s alone to determine judgment over them, in the same way it is only God and
God alone who will offer final judgment over each of us. However, if they do, just as when we do, they
are new creations, totally new persons, being remade, as we are, into the image
of Christ, charged not with condemning the world and those in it, but just as
God through Christ has reconciled us to Himself, we are charged with
reconciling others, bring others, those estranged from God, into a relationship
with the One who will never leave their nor our lives the same.
Glory be to God that we may all be made New Creations—forever changed—by
the love of our Risen Savior!
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit! Amen.
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