Old Patterns and New Beginnings
17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
I have had the pleasure of conducting dozens of wedding ceremonies over the course of my ministry and no two of them have been the same. How could they be? With that said, it has indeed been the case that many of these marriage partners chose either 1 Corinthians 13, or Ephesians 5 as the basis of the meditation offered at the service. This is common and familiar.
However, I once conducted a wedding between two people that had been married to each other before, had gotten a divorce, and now wanted to remarry each other. This is not common nor familiar. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 was their wedding text.
While I was surprised by the request, I was also encouraged by their logic for wanting to try again. They had been talking about what had brought them together the first time around. They replayed the joy and thrill of their first love. They reminded each other of what drew them together all those years ago. But they also were still keenly aware of what had destroyed the marriage. The betrayal of infidelity, the isolation of trying to avoid the pain of the broken promises was overwhelming. So they split up and shared the kids. They believed divorce was the only solution and resolved to dissolve the marriage.
Nevertheless, they stayed connected to the body of Christ. They went to different churches for worship and stayed in the word. It was in the word that they ran across this text from 2 Corinthians 5 “if anyone is in Christ”. They started to talk to each other about that word “if”. They concluded that they, by grace through faith, were “in-Christ”, which lead them to think through the next qualifier listed by Paul, “the new creation has come”. They wondered “if” it had come in them and concluded that it must have.
It had finally dawned on them that the “old” facts of features of their lives must have been slowly slipping away and the newness of God’s creation must have been taking hold. With that realization, the balance of the text started to make sense: both the “ministry” and “message” of reconciliation belongs to the believing community in general and to them in particular. Praise God.
So here they were, on the basis of this text, putting this new discovery into practice by getting married again…to each other. They had been reconciled to God and to each other and they wanted to bear witness to that fact by making vows to each other again before God and his people. Their children were now grown adults and understandably, not all of them attended the ceremony. Reconciliation is never easy, but it is possible because it is rooted in the power of the Holy Spirit. There is hope for us all.
Is there someone in your life with whom you ought to be reconciled? Maybe today would be a good day to take a step toward that end. God is faithful and he who began a good work in you will see it to completion…and will see it to completion in others as well. It takes a courageous and humble heart to admit that. Have a great day in the kingdom.