Sermon from March 30, 2025

“Reconciliation”

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Sermon for March 30, 2025

4th Sunday in Lent (Series C)

Let us pray: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.” Amen (Psalm 19:14).

The text for our meditation today is the Epistle Lesson, from 2 Corinthians 5:16-21. You are welcome to look at that reading with me in your pew Bibles, p. 966.

Five times in these six verses, Paul uses the word “reconciliation” or “reconcile.” This is not a word used a lot these days.

• Sometimes, it is used when you try to compare your financial records with what your bank or financial institution says - and hopefully, everything reconciles - and comes out the same, correctly.
• Sometimes, the word is used when people are having trouble with one another, and there’s a separation, a division between them - until hopefully things are worked out, and there’s a reconciliation, a coming together again.
• Most often, in the Bible, the word is used to refer to separation from God Himself and His will and the need to be brought together and reconciled with Him.

It all began with the rebellion of the devil, Satan, and many angels who followed him and opposed God and have continued to produce only evil and chaos ever since. It continued with the temptation of Adam and Eve and their falling into sin, as well, bringing a sinful human nature to every person born into this world. Not everyone believes in a sinful human nature, but it is very clear from the Scriptures and from ourselves and the fallen world in which we live. Paul described this condition that he was in and that all of us are in, left on our own, as he wrote, very dramatically, in Ephesians 2:1-3: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world… and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” - under the wrath and judgment of God. And how much can a dead person do? Nothing!

There is nothing we can do on our own to make things right and reconcile ourselves to God. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “Your sins, your iniquities, have made a separation between you and your God.” It is a gulf, a separation that we cannot cross on our own. But Isaiah also wrote, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull, that he cannot hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2).

What we could not do, God did for us, in the gift of His only Son, our Lord Jesus, and His loving, saving work for us. Paul put it this way in another of his letters, writing about himself: “Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, I received mercy… and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:13-15).

So, Paul writes, just before our text for today, “The love of Christ (now) controls us because we have concluded this: that One (Jesus) has died for all; therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

And as our text begins, Paul says, “From now on, therefore, (because of the love of Christ and the fact that He died for all) we regard no one according to the flesh, in a purely human way. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard Him thus no longer.”

Before the risen Lord Jesus appeared to Paul and turned His life around, Paul, who was a Jewish Pharisee, looked at Jesus as an ordinary man and even as an evil man, just as the Pharisees in our Gospel lesson grumbled about Jesus for receiving tax collectors and other sinners, bad people, and even showing care and fellowship with them, by eating with them. Now, Paul knows better about himself and about others because of His faith and trust in Christ Jesus and His Word and His work. Paul writes, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new had come.”

And Paul adds, very clearly, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself.” This is God’s doing, from beginning to end. We do not reconcile ourselves to God by our own efforts or our decisions or any good things that would merit or earn God’s favor. All this is from God.

And how could this happen? Paul goes on to say, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses, their sins, against them.” All the bad things that we have ever done, all our sins that would condemn us, are forgiven and no longer counted against us in Christ. Paul puts it this way in our text, “For our sake, for us, God made His own Son, Jesus, who knew no sin, had never sinned, to be sin for us” and to suffer the penalty for our sins, as all of our sins were dumped on Him, on the cross. All this was predicted by the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. The coming Savior was to be “pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the punishment that brought us peace… the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” and “with His wounds, we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-6).

It is exactly what was predicted also in our Old Testament lesson for today. “In that day,” the day of the coming of our Savior, “you will say, 'I will give thanks to You, O Lord, for though You were angry with me (because of my sins), Your anger turned away (by the suffering and death of Your own Son, in my place) that you might (forgive) and comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation'… Shout and sing for joy, for great in your midst (on that day) is the Holy One of Israel” (God’s own Son, Jesus our Savior).

This is the Great Exchange that Paul talks about in our text. Christ Jesus took all our sins upon Himself and paid the penalty for them all in our place, and in exchange, we are forgiven and counted as the righteous people of God, reconciled and at peace with God. And how does all this come personally to us? Paul says again and again in our text that God has now given to him and to all the Biblical preachers and writers “the ministry and message of reconciliation.” “We are ambassadors for Christ,” Paul says, “God making His appeal through us. We implore you, on behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God.” And the Holy Spirit of God works through the Word about and of Christ to bring people to faith and forgiveness in Him as the gift of God.

We have had quite a number of baptisms in our congregation recently, too, and we know that the Holy Spirit also works through the Word of God connected with water in the gift of Baptism. Paul wrote, in another of His letters, “You were buried with Christ, in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses, God made alive, together with Christ, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us (for our sins), nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:12-14).

This is the most important reconciliation we can ever receive because with it also comes new life and salvation through Christ. We know the Scriptures that say, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him will not be condemned” (John 3:17-18).

And this is Good News not just to get us to heaven one day but also to help us in this life, too, where we continue to be imperfect people, living with other imperfect people. We, too, can share the Good News of Christ with others, as our Old Testament lesson says, “Let this be known in all the earth… Make known His deeds in all the earth. Sing praises to the Lord, for His has done glorious things” for us (Isaiah 12:4-5).

And we can seek to live in Christ in a more reconciled way with one another by God’s power. Children can learn to forgive and be forgiven by their brothers and sisters and others in a better way, as we heard in the children’s message. A father (or mother) can learn to forgive both his sons (or daughters), as we heard in the Gospel lesson - the son who goes far astray and the son who seems to do more of the right things and yet is still angry and resentful and jealous, at times (Luke 15:1-2, 11-32).

And we can learn better to trust God’s forgiveness for us, ourselves, and our own sins and weaknesses when Satan reminds us of these failures and wants just to condemn us and pull us toward despair. We can confess our sins and remember and rejoice in Christ’s full and free forgiveness, already earned for us on the cross. We can trust not in ourselves and our performance but in Christ and His love and His reconciling work that brings us true peace and hope for us all.

Let us pray, “Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep our hearts and minds safe, only where they can truly be safe, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. (Philippians 4:7).