Sermon March 27, 2022: On Seeking Divine Inspiration in Holy Silence

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

“So if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation.”

We are ambassadors for Christ.

Our reading today from 2 Corinthians was probably a compilation of a number of letters to the Church at Corinth. And they were probably written from 55 to 57 CE.

In this small section of the epistle Paul uses a word for reconciliation a number of times and interestingly he is the only author in the New Testament to use this word.

We are reconciled because we are forgiven.

I thought about preaching on reconciliation and seeing in others the new creation in Christ. But I decided I wanted to think a little bit bigger, to expand the idea of a new creation. I wanted to think a little bit about Paul’s comments on being ambassadors for Christ. We are recipients of Divine love and we are called to tell people about it.

The Good News is not for us to hoard - it is ours to share, to give away and to live.

Do we see the new creation that Paul talks about? Can we see the new creation? The theme of our Synod assembly in 2021 was “See I am doing a new thing”. And there was a great deal of enthusiasm around this. There was a sense that good things are happening in the life of our Church. That even in the middle of a pandemic, even with aging and shrinking congregations and volunteers, even with the realities of less money. Even with these realities God is working and through us to do a new thing.

I feel the possibilities. I feel that the Holy Spirit has work for us to do. So I want to ask you, do you see the new creation?

New creation is conceived in imagination, imagination begins in prayer and in the images that God plants within us.

Prayer begins in Holy silence.

I would like us to spend a moment or two in holy silence. And then I would like to ask you to imagine. Imagine a new creation. Imagine what Advent could be or could do. Do not limit your imagination - think big. If there were no limits - what would you want Advent to be? What would you want Advent to look like? And what would you like us to do here?

No limits - no negatives - no we could if only….

Dream and imagine the new creation.

SILENCE

Please share your dreams, your imagination, your hopes for a new creation.

It’s time to listen to the movements in our hearts and spirits. When we listen, then we will start to hear the call of the new creation.

And then perhaps we can do as Paul asks and see the world in a new way. No longer see things with human eyes, but see with the eyes of Christ.

What wonderful things might happen? Maybe we will experience a time when everything becomes new by an act of faith. The act of trusting that the future God whispers to us can be brought into being. Its time to listen to God, to be faithful and to see the new creation. To be the ambassadors of Christ that Paul calls us to be.

AMEN