A New Creation: A Homily on 2 Corinthians 5:14-18

How many of you have heard of Curious George?

When my son William was younger, he often wanted me to read the story of Curious George to him at bed time. Of course, it always starts out the same way: “This is George. He was a good little monkey. And always very curious.”

And each story has the same theme. George intends to do well, but his curiosity gets the better of him, and he gets into trouble because of it.

In one story, George is washing apartment windows, and he promised not to be curious about what the people were doing inside the apartments. But George forgot his promise, and looked into one apartment where the painters were at work. He decided that painting looked like more fun than window washing, so went inside to try his hand at it while the painters were at lunch. Of course, when the painters returned, they weren’t very happy with George, and began to chase him. George jumped off a fire escape to get away from them, but broke his leg. As he sat in the hospital, George thought, “And it had all started out so nicely. If only he had not been so curious he could have had a lot of fun. Now it was too late.”

Have you ever been in a situation like that, where everything had started so nicely, but you managed to make a mess of things, and I was too late to do anything about it? To undo what you had done?  I know I certainly have, more times than I would prefer to remember.

Well, just think how Adam and Eve must have felt the moment they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, in violation of God’s commandment?

In Genesis 1, we read about God creation of the world. How He created light, and separated it from the darkness. How He created the land, and used it to separate the waters. How he created the plants, the planets and the stars, the animals and finally man. And once He was finished, He saw that it was very good.

God, in all His infinite might and wisdom, had created the heavens and earth just as He saw fit. Yet Adam and Eve, in one act of disobedience—thinking they knew better, spoiled the whole thing. They didn’t have to be told this. Immediately, they were ashamed and tried to hide behind both fig leaves and the trees of the Garden. And there was nothing they could do to make it right again.

We all know that the penalty for breaking God’s commandments is death. But sometimes we fail to fully comprehend what happened that day. Adam and Eve were banished from the presence of God, and their relationship with Him was severed. Their own relationship was severely strained. Adam now had to toil in sweat, and Eve suffer pain in childbirth.

Furthermore, the entire earth was corrupted by sin. Where God’s pronouncement of goodness had once characterized creation, sin began to prevail. Cain murdered Able. Now, where God had once separated the light from the darkness, they began to be joined again, as we see in Matthew 6:22-23: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

Ultimately, the depravity of man and earth’s decay became so bad that God destroyed that which He had created in the great flood. That story is in Genesis 7:18-23: “The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah and those with him in the ark remained.”

Remember in the beginning, when God used the land to separate the waters? Now, in the great flood, the waters came back together, and God destroyed His creation.

Fortunately for us, though, this is not the end of the story. For even as Adam and Eve had set creation on the path of ruin, God revealed that He had a plan for a new creation, one that would not be plagued by sin.

In Genesis 3:15, as He cursed the snake, God offered hope for this new creation, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Also, in Genesis 8:1-5, God reserved a remnant of His people: “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.”

Here we see the new creation emerge from the waters, just as it had in the beginning. God used the waters for cleansing. Yet He was not done with His work here. There was more to be done. Someone had to pay the price for man’s sin before our relationship with God could be fully restored.

Of course, that someone was Jesus Christ, who did pay the price by dying for our sins on the cross, even though He had done nothing to deserve death, for He led that perfect life that Adam and Eve, and all the rest of us, had failed to live.

In his gospel, the Apostle John introduces us to Jesus (John 1:1-5): “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Does that sound familiar? It should, for it is very much like the creation story that we read earlier in Genesis 1.

This similarity tells us that Christ, just as “all things were made through him” in the original creation of the heavens and earth, is the Maker of a new heavens and new earth. We learn about this in 2 Peter 3:10-13: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

You see, God, through Christ, is in the process of recreating the world one last time. It will be a place where “nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

“Well,” you might say, “that sounds like a wonderful place, but what good is it for me? I am a sinner and unclean—it doesn’t sound like I will be able to go there.”

If you would ask such a question, I have some very good news for you. Let me read it to you from 2 Corinthians 5:14-18: “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.”

God has made all those who have called on Christ in faith as their Lord and Savior into a new creation themselves. And though we can see it only dimly now, God has declared us righteous through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And one day we will walk in this fully completed new creation as fully completed new creations ourselves fully reconciled with Him by the light of His glory, Jesus Christ.

I want you to remember this the next time you do something that seems to completely ruins something. Or if you begin to despair over your sins, past or present. For though we cannot repair the damage done by our sin, God can. And already has. Unlike what Curious George thought in the hospital, it is not too late for us to enjoy God as new creations in Christ. Remember this, turn to Him in confession and repentance, and thank Him for the great work He has done and is doing in you and in all creation.