Yes…Yes (Conclusion)
An Appeal to all Christians.
“If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a New Creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5: 17).
Isn’t that an amazing statement: those who are in Christ are new creations. What does it actually mean?
Jesus says somewhere that we should not put new wine into old wineskins, because these used containers might not be leak proof, creating the possibility that this precious drink – wine was Israel’s national beverage- could seep out and that would be a terrible waste.
Well, the same is true for being a New Creation: it just won’t do to place such a person in an environment where it simply would be out of place: a new creation can only thrive in a new environment.
Look at the world we live in. For the unskilled eye it looks in fairly good shape, but on a closer look here’s where we are now. We live in a world that is fraught with problems, burdened with debt, both monetary and environmental. We also constantly live under the shadow of nuclear war, of Global warming, of oil depletion, of unemployment, of mortgage foreclosure, even of a pandemic, which may rapidly spread when the real flu season starts in the fall. Frankly the general outlook, from whatever angle, is dismal, as deficits get bigger and hyper inflation- or worse deflation – cannot be ruled out. By all accounts we live in a different world. Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co. recently remarked that “It is more and more clear that what worked in the 20th Century will not work in the 21st Century.” That is also true for the church, reason why Paul’s saying that “those who are in Christ are a new creation,’ means something different today than it did in his time or even a decade ago.
That is why I started this series by saying that “Times are never better for us Christians,” because the world experiences ‘change and decay’ every where, and has no clue what to do, while there is a definite Christian solution.
The current situation is historic because we are witnessing the decline and fall of Capitalism, in spite of valiant efforts by the money-men of our times, which include most politicians, to put our Humpty Dumpty Money System together again.
We are now in that curious in-between- time, where matters can go either way: renewal or chaos, redemption or disintegration, rebirth or death.
Uncertainty brings golden opportunities. The world is screaming for answers now that the old ways have been found wanting. Of course, as fanatics are apt to do: when matters are failing, they redouble the efforts, as can be seen in the multiple stimulus packages that will only aggravate the already precarious state of finances, as more growth leads to more pollution, faster resource depletion and quicker Climate Change. To encourage ‘growth’, environmental concerns are downplayed because our capitalistic economy is like a bicycle: once it stalls society collapses, so momentum must be maintained at all cost.
The Bible is our guide here. It is not a history book, and does not give us specific outlines how to invest money, yet it directs us in a certain way that helps us in changing circumstances, so, what was true for my Christian grandparents’ time holds no water today. Their daily code of conduct was very strict: no dancing, no card playing, no cinema attendance, no Sunday work of any kind, but twice to church, but they generated a lot of entertainment themselves: wind instrument bands, choirs, young people meets, very structured lives. Then Christians were easily recognized by their simple, perhaps simplistic, customs. Today Christians cannot be recognized in any way. Yet we should stand out, and the way we live should provide that answer, for the simple reason that the Way of the World has become the Way of Death.
So what does the Bible tells us in this matter?
The Bible is the book of Salvation, which means that it tells us that God created the world, that we, ever since Adam and Eve, have been busy un-creating it, and that Jesus stopped that process so that we – under Jesus’ guidance- again can help God to keep creating.
Today we have reached a crucial junction where we either join the forces of destruction and so dig our own grave as well, or participate in preparing for a New World by being A New Creation.
So what does this imply? Let me give a few examples: imagine a bird that would want to live a long life. Last week, in church, a person not known for his environmental commitment- he still smokes and does not believe in Climate Change- commented to me that he had not seen swallows this year at all and wondered why. A swallow can only operate when conditions are good: clean air, lots of good habitat. The same is true for fish, which too has seen sharp declines, or frogs, whose number have grown smaller for years now. In order to flourish again these animals need a New Creation.
The same holds true for us. “If anyone is in Christ she or he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come.” If we want to be in Christ, really be born again, then we have to become a New Creation and – here comes the clincher – have to work toward a New Creation as well: new wine in new wineskins; newly created human beings in a New Creation. Revelation in its very last chapter urges us to ‘wash our clothes – to live an environmentally clean life- so that we may have the right to the Tree of Life and go through the gate into the City, the New Jerusalem.”
In a word: for a person to be a New Creation, to be in Christ, fully, one hundred percent, means that we must also live in a new creation, must strive to create conditions that resemble the New World to come. I realize that this goes directly against the current thinking in the North American Church. One missionary, Craig Sorley in Kenya, trying to encourage green practices there – as quoted in the June 20 2009 issue of the Canadian Globe and Mail – writes, “The deeply embedded view ( in the church) is that Christ is returning soon, so why should we care about the environment?” That is the 20th century church speaking.
The 21st Christian view is exactly the opposite: precisely because Christ’ return is imminent, we should deeply care about God’s earth. Martin Luther, the church reformer, once said: “If I knew that Christ would come back tomorrow, I would still plant a tree today.” We can no longer call ourselves “in Christ” unless we also live our lives “In Christ”, that is in a place that resembles, as close as possible, to world that is to come, because not heaven, but a renewed earth is our final destination.
Remember we cannot do anything without Christ, but Christ will not do anything without us. After all we are “heirs of the Kingdom – the New Creation – and co-heirs with Christ.”