“Old & New Things” Colchester Federated Church, June 16, 2024, Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (2 Corinthians 5:6-17)

Today we are continuing our exploration of Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians.  As a reminder, Paul founded the Christian community in Corinth and had a special relationship with this community of believers.  Overall, 2 Corinthians is one of Paul’s most heartfelt, personal letters because of this relationship.  Though the Corinthian congregation and Paul also had occasional conflicts.  2 Corinthians was written (in part) to respond to rival missionaries who came to Corinth.  Those missionaries questioned Paul’s ministry.  Paul in turn questioned the ways that those missionaries were leading the congregation away from Paul’s vision for them.  Paul sought to defend his ministry among the Corinthians (and his ministry in general).  In the letter, he also appealed to the congregation to raise money to help those who were poor in Jerusalem by taking up a collection.  Finally, Paul shared some of his theological beliefs throughout, particularly beliefs about suffering, grace, and how people can lead transformed lives because of the grace of God.

Okay we’re all caught up.  Now one of the most compelling verses in this letter is 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17: “So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!”[1]  The new creation—this idea is worth exploring in-depth today.  It’s not unique to Paul, though Paul makes it his own as a follower of Jesus Christ.  The new creation is an important aspect of Paul’s theology and can give each of us hope in our own lives.

To fully understand the new creation, we need to go back to the Old Testament first and the Prophet Isaiah in particular.  Listen to what Isaiah had to say about the new creation (on behalf of God): “See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”[2]  Or “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”[3]  Isaiah also wrote: “You have heard; now see all this; and will you not declare it?  From this time forward I make you hear new things, hidden things that you have not known.”[4]  Finally, there’s these words from Isaiah Chapter 65 (near the end of the book): “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.”[5]

Sometimes people have a bad habit of thinking that we come up with brilliant ideas in a vacuum.  The truth is that if we’re open and paying attention, there can be a great many people and places and ideas and experiences that influence and shape who we are and how we view the world.  As a quick aside, I just finished Diana Pavlac Glyer’s book Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings.  For those who may or may not be aware, Lewis and Tolkien were good friends and professors at Oxford University.  These two literary greats were also part of a group of writers called the Inklings.  The Inklings met each week for around 17 years to discuss what everyone was working on when it came to their respective literary works.  We can recall that this was way before computers, so these working writers would bring hand-written manuscripts that they would read aloud to one another every Thursday evening for encouragement, critique, and to work out some of their ideas.  As Glyer shares, “Extensive reading, careful listening, and thoughtful critique marked these weekly meetings.”[6]  The literary masterpieces that emerged from the Inklings are too many to name—The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia being perhaps the most famous.  The whole point of the Inklings was creative collaboration among the group.

Keeping this in mind in worship here at Colchester Federated Church today, we can be aware that this idea of the new creation did not come from Paul originally.  We just heard quite a few passages found throughout the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament.  The new creation was originally shared by the Prophet Isaiah—a new heaven and a new earth that God would bring into being. 

The people in Isaiah’s context had experienced exile and the destruction of all they held dear.  In the year 586 BCE the Babylonian Empire destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple.  A good deal of the population was deported to Babylon—an event known as “the exile.”  The Psalmist famously lamented, “By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down, and there we wept when we remembered Zion.  On the willows there we hung up our harps.  For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’  How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”[7] 

How did the people hold onto hope? 

How did the people keep going when so many bad things had happened to them?  Isaiah shared words he heard from God about a new heaven and a new earth, the restoration of life.  God says, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”[8]  These are words of hope and words of promise, words of trust and words of compassion. 

I am about to do a new thing.  I will make a way.

Paul knew all of this because this was the history of his people.  Though Paul takes this beautiful sentiment from Isaiah and interprets this idea (in a creative and collaborative sort of way).  Paul expands the new creation in a new way as a follower of Jesus the Christ.  By the time we get to 2 Corinthians, we hear Paul say to another community going through some stuff, “So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation.  The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!”[9]

Alright, I have tried to take some threads and weave them together in this sermon so that we can see and understand that the new creation did not come fully formed out of Paul’s head.  The new heaven and the new earth, the old things passing away and new things being declared—this came from the prophet Isaiah originally.  Well, we can argue that it all came from God, of course.  But Isaiah is the person who wrote about God creating a new heaven and a new earth and restoring life in all its beauty after the heartbreak of war and exile.  However, Paul creatively works out this idea in a new way.  Because for Paul, when someone came to know and love Jesus, when someone devoted their lives to following in the Way of Jesus—this was individual and communal and it even had cosmic implications. 

This was nothing short of transformation, of people becoming part of the new creation.  Because this is a day of new beginnings.  It’s time to remember and it’s time to move on.  To believe what love is bringing.  To lay to rest the pain that’s gone as our hymn so beautifully set to music.  Because the old things have gone away and the new things have arrived.  Look!  God is doing a new thing; can’t we perceive it? 

If Paul himself can go from persecuting Christians to being persecuted as a Christian, how can we possibly think that people can’t change for the better?  How can we possibly think that things can’t improve in our lives and in our world?  This is an invitation to not stay stuck and mired in the pain of the past when new life in Christ is ever before us.  For in Christ, we are part of the new creation and we can be co-creators of a more beautiful world with God.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] 2 Corinthians 5:17, CEB.
[2] Isaiah 42:9, NRSV.
[3] Isaiah 43:18-19, NRSV.
[4] Isaiah 48:6, NRSV.
[5] Isaiah 65:17-18, NRSV.
[6] Diana Pavlac Glyer, Illustrated by James A. Owen, Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings, pg. 25.
[7] Psalm 137:1-4, NRSVUE.
[8] Isaiah 43:19, NRSV.
[9] 2 Corinthians 5:17, CEB.

Photo by Rev. Lauren Ostrout.