This week marks the beginning of spring as the earth continues its annual wobbling back and forth. Temperatures are warming. Hours of sunlight are lengthening. Trees and plants are beginning to bud and green. The "dead" of winter is giving way to the rebirth of spring.
This annual rebirth of creation invites us to lift our eyes beyond the physical realm to the spiritual, specifically to the new creation that lies at the heart of the spiritual life.
In writing to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul proclaimed the new creation: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God" (2 Corinthians 5:17-18a, NRSV). The original seems to shout good news: "if anyone is in Christ, new creation!" New creation is described as the old having passed away so that everything has become new. Christ brings new creation!
What is this new creation that is reflected in the coming of spring? What is the new that Christ brings? The larger passage (5:16-21) answers the questions.
The new creation is the Spirit's transforming work in us. An old way of thinking and relating is set aside for a new, Spirit-shaped way of thinking and relating, verse 16. The old way of thinking and relating was to see others from a human perspective. It was to see them as "other," not like me. It was to judge them by my expectations and standards. The old way was to find fault, condemn, and exclude any who were not like me, who did not think like me. For Paul, that old way of seeing included seeing and judging Jesus and his followers through Paul's biases. But all of that changed for Paul when he encountered the Living Christ. Paul became a new creation ... as do we!
The Spirit's work of new creation in us leads us to see each person from a spiritual perspective, that is, through the eyes of God. We learn to see and relate to each person, not as "other," but as a beloved child of God. Rather than judging, condemning, and excluding, we accept and embrace those who before we would have judged and rejected.
The Apostle is clear that this work of new creation is God's work: "all this is from God" (5:18). The change in us is the result of the Spirit's work. No amount of self-effort or resolve can produce such a change of heart and mind. The new creation is the work of God.
As with all of God's work, this new creation in us does not come fully mature. It takes place in us through a Spirit-orchestrated process of transformation and growth. However, we are not passive recipients of God's work. We are active participants in the process. The transformation happens in us as we respond to the Spirit's guidance. The Spirit teaches and directs, but we must choose to act on the Spirit's guidance. We choose, relying on the Spirit's power to do what we cannot do in our own strength. In doing so, we are co-creators with God in creating this new creation in us.
God's new creation in us leads to a second dimension of the new creation in Paul's thinking: a new creation in the world of human relationships. Reconciliation displaces alienation and division, leading to peace (shalom). Jesus' term for this new creation was the Kingdom of God. Because of the new creation happening in us, we become God's partners - Paul's word: ambassadors (5:20) - in the work of reconciliation that leads to peace.
The Lenten journey invites us to actively set aside the old. Just as we respond to the coming of spring by cleaning out flower beds, raking dead leaves, and pruning away dead wood, so we respond to the Spirit's work of new creation in us by cleaning out what is old, dead, and lifeless. We set aside old attitudes, old viewpoints, old hurts, old resentments that keep alienation and division entrenched. And just as we plant seeds and set out new plants with the coming of spring, so we embrace the life-giving ways of grace and forgiveness, reconciliation and peace as God's partners and co-creators in the new creation of the Kingdom.
We are half way through this Lenten journey. What of the old needs to be put aside so that God's work of new creation can blossom and bloom in us and, through us, in the world? Who might you see differently, setting aside judgement, criticism, and rejection?
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