Preaching Series on 2 Corinthians

[This is Week 5 of a 6-week preaching series on 2 Corinthians.]

Psalm 23
"Psalm 23," John August Swanson. Used by permission from the artist. Image © by John August Swanson.  Artwork held in the Luther Seminary Fine Arts Collection, St. Paul, Minn.

June 19, 2016

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Commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:11-21



[This is Week 5 of a 6-week preaching series on 2 Corinthians.]

Week 5 (June 19, 2016)         

Preaching text: 2 Cor 5:11-21; accompanying text: Luke 15:25-32
Theme: Reconciliation

The basis of all this is the love of Christ that presses us on together — with Christ and with one another. One has died for all so that all might live for him who died and was raised for them (2 Cor 5:14-15). We no longer need to deny death — or the sheer pathos of life — because we know that Christ’s love is stronger than death. We are now free to live for the one who died and was raised for us, embodying in our lives God’s very justice and mercy (2 Cor 5:21).

This gives us a radically fresh perspective on life. We no longer need to view others from the standpoint of human criteria — in the same way that we no longer view Jesus as just one more martyr for a righteous cause. In Christ, there is new creation; all that distorts in the systems and worlds we have created for ourselves and others are now archaic; “see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor 5:16-17).

All this comes from God, who has reconciled us to Godself and has now given us not a special status to lord it over others — or to be immune from life’s suffering — but a ministry or a service (diakonia) of reconciliation. And this diakonia is grounded in the fact in Christ God was reconciling the entire cosmos to Godself — not judging them and calculating their trespasses against them — and entrusting us also with a message or a word (logos) of reconciliation for everyone (2 Cor 5:18-19).

So we are now ambassadors for Christ. God speaks God’s word of consolation through us and this word calls us all to be reconciled with God so that we might be reconciled with one another (as Paul sought to be with the Corinthians). For our sake, the one who knew no sin was made to be sin; the righteous one, Jesus, took on all the ways we are hooked in abusive patterns with ourselves or one another, whether as victims or perpetrators. And he did this so that we might become the very righteousness of God, the very spaces where God’s reign of mercy and consoling justice might overflow as grace — free gift — for all.