New Heavens and A New Earth

New Heavens and A New Earth

Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Thus, says the LORD: Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind. Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create; For I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight; I will rejoice in Jerusalem and exult in my people. Isaiah 65:17-19B

Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. While the man was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live. John 4:48-51

Piety

Standing at the gate of love
Waiting for the life of the Son
To follow me 'til I am undone
Oh, you pulled me out of the mud
Up from the miry clay
You washed all my sins away
I've been redeemed
I am a new creation
I have been born again

From “New Creation” By Leeland

Writer/S: Ed Cash, Jack Mooring, Leeland Mooring
Publisher: Music Services, Inc.

Study

So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. 2 Corinthians 5:17

St. Paul read Isaiah and understood how it plays out through Jesus in making us a New Creation washed of our sins.

When we receive Jesus's salvation (like the son of the Roman official), we die to sin and are born again, a new creation in Jesus. We start over with a clean slate!  Jesus tried to make that point in the Sunday Gospel to Nicodemus. It is a point that Jesus and the evangelists come back to time and again.

Action

Before developing a new relationship with Jesus, our identity may have wavered from one diversion to another – from one false idol to another. Was your identity first carved out in the saxophone section of your high school marching band?  Or did you run the high school CYO and sitting on the bench of its basketball team?  Did you help your friends sneak those first drinks of Coors or Jack Daniels?  Or maybe you signed up to volunteer for the local fire company or first aid squad or library?

Our identity gets further defined when we choose a college, buy a car, get married, have children and start careers. Too often we stake who we are in the world to what we do from nine to five, rather than our 24/7 identity.

If you play basketball during March Madness, you are a basketball player. If you played guitar in the folk group at church, you are a musician. If you have the lead in the school play or are the Homecoming King or Queen, you are the Star or the BMOC. If you are good at fixing cars, you are a mechanic.

What if the basketball player – say Hank Gathers from Loyola Marymount – gets a heart condition and dies on the court?  Or Len Bias dies of a drug overdose right after being drafted by the Boston Celtics? What if a bigger star comes along and the player gets cut from the team?  What if you lose and not only don’t make the NCAA tournament but also don’t get invited to the NIT? Life is more than today’s game. It can change in an instant – just ask Joe Theismann and his broken leg.

If we place our identity ONLY in what we do, it's like building our house on shifting sand! If we believe Jesus is the way, truth, and the life, then no one can take that hope and assurance and new creation away from us. No pink slip can take Jesus away. No horrible boss can rob us of our heritage as a child of God.

Once we join Nicodemus as a new creation in Jesus, no matter what season of life we're in, we remain the same because we are new creations IN Christ Jesus! “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!"

What would you do if you got to start all over again? Well, this Lenten season is our chance to return to the Lord as a new creation.