There are moments in our lives when we feel renewed. Think about the moments that renew you. Often people feel renewed after exercising or after a hot shower. Often we feel renewed when we have just fallen in love or have struck up a new relationship at work. The feeling of being renewed is usually accompanied by the feeling of being energized, feeling free and empowered. Often our creativity is released.

The Christian message is a message of renewal - renewal at its deepest level, renewal of our whole being. The Christian message is a message of new relationship - with God, with others and with ourselves. The Christian message is a message of a new Creation, a new reality which has appeared with the coming of Jesus Christ.

Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians, "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away - see everything has become new."

The Good News Version of the Bible puts it this way, "When anyone is joined to Christ, they are a new being; the old is gone, the new has come."

They are a new being, there is a new creation - the Christian message is a message of the new being, the new creation.

So, what is the New Being?

Theologian Paul Tillich writes, "The new Being is a renewal of the Old which has been corrupted, distorted, split and almost destroyed. But not wholly destroyed. Salvation...transforms the Old Creation into a New one. Therefore we can think of the New in terms of a re-newal - that's what Christ does for us - renews us. And there are three parts to this renewal in Christ - three 're', - reconciliation, reunion and resurrection.

Reconciliation - when we are born we are at peace, in conciliation, with God, with others, and with ourselves. Along the way, in our lives, that has been split or broken. We have hard feeling because people have hurt us, God has let bad things happen to us, and we have not met our own expectations. To be reconciled is to find peace again, through the power of forgiveness.

Several months ago I received an angry letter from a woman I had talked to months before. She wanted me to perform the wedding of her daughter. (The woman had not been to church in 10 years and was not interested in renewing her relationship with the United Church. Her daughter lives in the US and they are Salvation Army and so I was not prepared to perform a wedding for people who had no United Church connection.) The letter was emotionally written and convoluted because of the emotion. But it was clear that she was angry and when I was able to peel away the sentences that were, in my view, ridiculous, I was able to understand that the woman had felt rejected by me - that was the point of the letter. I had rejected her.

When we feel rejected we often react with hostility. If we are often horrified by the unconscious or conscious hostility people betray toward us, let us not forget: They feel rejected by us.

And when we react with hostility toward others, let us not forget: we feel rejected by them.

"This is the message: A new reality has appeared in which you are reconciled. To enter the New Being, the New Creation we must simply be open to be grasped by it, although we may not have anything to show for it right away.

A friend of mine had a father who was in the intensive care unit of the hospital. He had been over medicated and his body was not reacting well. He was in a great deal of pain. He had stopped eating. The colour had left his eyes and they thought that they might lose him.

My friend's sister holds a great deal of hostility towards her father and is not willing or perhaps able to reconcile with her father.

My friend came to me distressed because of the division in her family. So, I listen to her and then gave her a copy of Chris' sermon from a couple of weeks ago, a sermon on forgiveness, on forgiving others. My friend took the sermon and then went to visit her father in the hospital that evening. She sat with him for a long time and then finally she said, "Dad, I want to read you something." And then she proceeded to read him this sermon on forgiving others, on reconciliation.

Within an hour of her reading this sermon, the pain lifted from his chest. The next morning he sat up and ate a bowl of porridge. The other day they sent him home during the hospital workers strike. The family was astounded at his sudden recovery. They all wanted a copy of this sermon.

Reconciliation has occurred, yet, technically, no one has acted any differently, no one in the family has said anything, no one has asked for forgiveness, no one has said, "You are forgiven" and yet, reconciliation has occurred.

The Christian message is this: a new reality, a new creation has appeared in which you are reconciled. To enter the New Creation we do not need to show anything on the outside, for the work of the new creation is inward, and at first we may act no differently.

Being reconciled is first part of the New Creation. Being reunited is its second part. Re-union - we were once in union with God, with others and with ourselves but that union has been broken or split. In the new Creation we are reunited with those who we have been separated from. Reconciliation makes reunion possible. We don't know what may yet happen in this divided family, but the reconciliation that has taken place in the heart of the father makes reunion with his daughter possible.

Those of us who have been born again to the New Creation have, of course, moments of relapse from the New back to the Old Creation. Therefore, the third part of the New Creation is resurrection. Re - surrection: What is surrection? Actually the word comes from surge meaning to rise. Resurrection means that we will rise into the new creation, not once but many times, we will rise again and again.

Resurrection means the victory of the new state of things, the New Creation is born out of the death of the Old Creation. Resurrection is not an event that might happen in some remote future, but it is the power of the New Creation to create life out of death, here and now, today and tomorrow. Where there is a new Being and a New Creation, there is resurrection.

A businessman was trying to sell warehouse property. The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and strewn trash around the interior.

As he showed a prospective buyer the property, the businessman took pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage.

"Forget about the repairs," the buyer said. "When I buy this place, I'm going to build something completely different. I don't want the building; I want the site.

Compared with the renovation God has in mind, our efforts to improve our own lives are as trivial as sweeping a warehouse slated for the wrecking ball.

When we become God's, when we are simply open to be grasped by the new Creation in Christ, old life is over. God makes all things new. All he wants is the site and the permission to build.

Reconciliation, reunion, resurrection - this is the New creation, the New Being, the new state of things. Do we participate in it? The message of Christianity is a New Reality. A new state of things has appeared, it still appears; it is hidden and visible, it is there and it is here. Accept it, enter into it, let it grasp you. Amen.

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