A New Creation

March 30, 2025 homily on Psalm 32 and 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 by Pastor Galen, for the fourth Sunday in Lent.

“If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17

A Fresh Start

Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt like you were given a fresh start? Maybe you moved to a new city, or started a new job. Maybe you made a new friend, or met a new romantic partner, or welcomed a new child into your household.

It’s times like these when we often feel like we’ve been given a new lease on life — an opportunity to start all over, to start fresh.

And it’s not always just major life events that can make us feel this way, either. Several years ago one of my students was very excited because he had just bought a new pair of shoes. He said that when he was wearing these new shoes, it felt like he was walking on air. He said he could run better, and play basketball better, and even dance better when he was wearing these new shoes. (I wish I had asked him where I could buy a pair of those shoes!)

Happy Are Those

In Psalm 32, King David describes how he was given a fresh start when he stopped trying to hide his sins, and turned to God in repentance and trust. Psalm 32 starts out, “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Psalm 32:1-2). Or, as the Message paraphrase puts it, “…How happy you must be—you get a fresh start, your slate’s wiped clean. Count yourself lucky—God holds nothing against you and you’re holding nothing back from him” (Psalm 32:1-2, MSG).

David then describes what it was like before he repented of his sins — when he was racked with guilt. “While I kept silent, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer” (Psalm 32:3-4). What vivid imagery! His body was wasting away through his groaning. He probably couldn’t eat or sleep, he was tossing and turning in his bed at night. And he says that God’s hand was heavy upon him. This makes me think of when a parent finds out that the child has stolen a candy bar from the store and marches the child back to the store owner to make them apologize and pay for the candy bar. The child can feel the weight of their guilt, multiplied by the weight of their parents arm pressing down firmly on their shoulder!

David says his strength was dried up by the heat of summer. David was tormented by the knowledge of whatever it was that he had done (cf 2 Samuel 11-12).

I wonder if any of us have ever felt this way? Tortured or tormented with the knowledge and awareness that we messed up in a big way. Tossing and turning at night, can’t eat or sleep, wondering how to undo the mess we’ve made. Wondering if the person or people we’ve hurt will ever forgive us, if we can ever make things right. Wondering whether God will ever forgive us. 

The Burden Has Been Lifted

I don’t know how long David lived with this guilt, and when he finally turned to God in repentance and trust. But in verses 5 and following, David describes the fresh start he received when he finally gave it all over to the Lord. David says, “Then I let it all out; I said, ‘I’ll come clean about my failures to God.’ Suddenly the pressure was gone—my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared” (Psalm 32:5 MSG). 

When David turned to God in repentance and trust, it felt like the burden was lifted. He was given a fresh start. Certainly in comparison to how he was feeling earlier, it must have felt like he was walking on a cloud. Like my student with the new shoes, I’m sure he could run and play basketball better and even dance better!

David ends this Psalm by saying, “Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. [So] Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart” (Psalm 32:10-11).

So often we try to hide our sins and wrongdoings from God — even though we know that we could never hide anything from God. We live with unrepented sins, thinking that God would reject us or turn us away if we asked forgiveness. But Scripture promises us that “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). We have stories in the Bible, like the story of the Prodigal Son, that illustrate that God is like a Father who is peering down the road waiting for his son to come to his senses and return home, waiting to extend love and forgiveness, if we will but turn to God in repentance and trust. 

This morning, if you have been living with guilt and shame, know that God is always standing ready and willing to forgive us, if we will but turn to God in repentance and trust. You do not have to live in guilt and shame. Confess your sins to the Lord, and you too can be given a fresh start.

A New Creation

But sometimes we live in guilt and shame over those times when we’ve tried our best and failed. Maybe we didn’t intentionally do something wrong, but it still caused hurt and pain to someone else. We replay the events in our minds, trying to figure out what we could have done differently, but we come up short. As people who live in a broken world, we’ve all hurt others and we’ve been hurt by others. That’s part of the reality of living in a sinful and fallen world.

The image that I have here is of a child who is trying to surprise his grandmother by cleaning her house for her, and reaches up to a tall shelf to try to dust around his grandmother’s precious vase, and he accidentally knocks it over and it breaks. He didn’t do anything intentionally wrong. He was trying to be helpful, and yet still the vase is broken beyond repair. 

As we go through life we have more and more of these types of experiences, and they add up, and we live with guilt and remorse over things that we’ve done or failed to do.

The Good News is that Jesus is the Healer. He died on the cross so that we could not only be forgiven of our sins, but also so that we could be healed of whatever wounds we’ve inflicted on ourselve and others. As we read in Isaiah 53:5, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). 

And so we can come to Jesus not only with our guilt and shame, but also with our hurt and pain, trusting that Jesus will forgive us, and also heals us, and makes us over anew.

As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!” 

Jesus not only forgives us and heals us, and removes our guilt and shame, but he takes the broken pieces of our lives — all of those places where we’ve tried our best and failed, all of those times when we’ve been hurt by others, all of those times that we’ve said or done something that we’ve later regretted — he takes all of that and heals us and makes something new and beautiful.

Turning Broken Pieces into a Beautiful Mosaic

As I was thinking about these verses, I was reminded of a mosaic. Mosaics are pieces of art that are produced by arranging together small colorful pieces of hard material, such as stone, glass, or pottery, into a picture or pattern. Often artists will take broken pieces of glass or pottery that might otherwise be discarded, and they will arrange them together to make a beautiful new piece of art.

This is what God does with us. We come to God with all of the broken pieces of our lives. We come with our guilt and shame over the things we’ve done that have causted pain to ourselves and others. We come with our hurt and wounds, even with the broken “vases” where we’ve tried to do good and failed, and we wonder if God could put all the pieces of our life back together again. But God does something even better than that — God creates something completely new, arranging the broken pieces of our lives into a beautiful mosaic. The mosaic is beautiful, because the light of God’s love shimmers off each and every one of the broken pieces, in a dazzling display of God’s love and grace and forgiveness.

God takes all of those broken pieces of our lives and makes us into a whole new creation — a whole new piece of art. A beautiful mosaic that incorporates all of our scars and rough edges and the places we’ve been wounded and heals, and reflects God’s glorious light.

A Ministry of Reconciliation

But it doesn’t stop there, because when Jesus takes our brokenness and heals us and turns us into this beautiful new creation, then he also commissions us to participate in God’s restorative work in the world. 

As the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5,

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20).

Paul says that we have been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation and that we are to be ambassadors of Christ, entreating others to be reconciled to God.

To “minister” is to serve. All followers of Christ are called to serve — to minister — not just pastors and clergy. In fact, as the pastor, my job is not to do all of the ministry of the church, but rather to encourage and equip each and every person in our church to do the ministry to which they have been called.

And Paul says that our ministry is that of reconciliation — making things right. We don’t make things right in and of our own strength — but rather by God’s light reflecting off of our broken and rough edges, others are pointed to the true source of hope and healing, the One who is in the process of making everything right — Jesus Christ. 

As followers of Christ, we are messengers of this good news. “Ambassadors for Christ” — meaning that we represent Jesus in the world. Not because we are perfect in and of ourselves, but because the light of Christ reflects off the new rough edges that God has made new — the beautiful mosaic that God has made of our lives, where all of the broken edges reflect God’s glorious light. And it is through us that Christ makes his appeal to the world — extending God’s love and grace and forgiveness, inviting the world to experience a fresh new start. A new Creation. 

And so this morning, let us come to God, in all of our brokenness, bringing all of our scars and wounds and rough places, inviting Jesus to make us into a beautiful new creation that reflects God’s love and grace to the world.

Amen!

Questions for Personal Reflection in Response to Today’s Sermon:

1. How does Psalm 32’s message about repentance and forgiveness resonate with your own experiences?
2. In what ways have you seen God bring healing and renewal to broken areas of your life?
3. What “broken pieces” in your life could God transform into something beautiful?
4. How do you feel about being an ambassador for Christ? What does that role mean to you?
5. How can you reflect God’s love and grace to others through your own life story?