Moving in a New Creation

From the day of November 9, 2025 we have the assigned Gospel reading of St Luke 8: 40 – 56.  We read about two miracles.  The first miracle presents to us a  woman with an ongoing menorrhagia who is healed by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment.  She had spent her living on physicians without receiving healing.  This points out the futility of the ways of the world system and many of its methods — no matter how well intentioned they may be.  The second miracle involves Jairus’ daughter who died, but was brought back to life by Christ’s words:  “Child, arise!” (St Luke 8 54).  Those who were assembled to mourn for the girl laughed at Jesus.  They could neither understand who was in their presence, nor comprehend his power to work miracles, especially his power over death.  There was no room for him as they understood the ways of the flesh and of the world system.

Let’s turn to the reading to the day’s designated epistle:  Galatians 6: 11 – 18.  In this epistle, St Paul battles the false teaching of the Judaizers and urges the Galatian church to ignore their errors.  The Judaizers were actively compelling Gentile male converts to receive circumcision, and follow in the now obsolete Jewish traditions, and to conform their lives to the Mosaic Law.  St Paul informs us of their motivation:  to avoid persecution for the sake of the Cross of Christ.  (To avoid persecution is a strong motivation for apostasy).  On top of this, those circumcised, who could not keep the Law, also wanted to boast in this marking of their flesh:  As a sign of their pride in being Jews.

St Paul will not boast in anything of his past, or in anything the world system values, or holds in esteem.  He will boast only in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ:

For far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Galatians 6: 14)

For St Paul, the values of the world system, its conventional wisdom, and its categories now — by being in Christ — have no hold on him because he is dead to them.  “For in Christ Jesus circumcision is nothing, as it is with uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Galatians 6: 15).  Elsewhere St Paul has written,

And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.  From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh; even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.  Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away, behold all things [ta panta meaning everything of creation] have become new (2 Corinthians 5: 15 – 17).

St Paul gives us more information:

And he is before all things, and in him all things [ta panta] stand in their proper orders.  He is the head of the body, the Church.  He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead in order that he might become pre-eminent in everything.  Because in him all the fullness [to pleroma] was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things in him, whether the things on earth or the things in heaven — making peace through the blood of his Cross (Colossians 1: 17 – 20).

(N.B.:  The reading from Colossians 1: 19 and its use of pleroma differs greatly from the use of to pleroma in 2: 9 which reads “because in him  all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (pan to pleroma tes theotetos somatikos).

All things are reconciled in peace through and unto Christ Jesus.  Since all things stand in their orders in Christ, this means all things have, according to and as is appropriate for their species, a share in the resurrection and in glorification bestowed upon all by Christ.  “Behold, all things have become new.”  By and in Christ a new world, a new creation, a new “economy” (meaning house rules) exist — “the old has passed away.”  We have been removed from a black and white existence.  We have been moved away from a world of stagnate air and water; of mold and toxins.  We have been moved into an existence of color, life, light, liberty, and victory which is in, by, and from Christ.  We are in Christ and are new.  These are our new realities in him:

…to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints.  To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1: 26 – 27).

St Paul, therefore, gives this instruction to the Colossians:  “As, therefore, you received Christ Jesus the Lord, in him walk” (Colossians 2: 6).

We walk.  We do not stand still.  We are to be active in Christ.  As Christians we are not to be living a sedentary life which would lead to spiritual atrophy.  Let me provide an illustration.  On my property is a miniature kiwi vine.  Let it stand for the mindset and ways of the world system.  Its vines, tendrils, reach out for any stationary object:  trees, bushes, fence posts.  The tendrils form a spiral around the captured object.  If the object was able to move, it could not.  It is trapped in the unrelenting grip of the vine.  So it would be for a Christian who is not active in the faith:  entrapment.

We must walk in the ways of Christ.  We must walk away from, shun, and throw away the reasonings and ways of the world system — its economies.  We must walk — conduct our lives — in Christ, in his ways and economies, in his new creation.  For ourselves, one another, and for all and all things, let all of our movements be to the glory of God:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The following is the corresponding sermon given at Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, Tacoma WA on November 2, 2025:

In Christ by whom all things are new,

Fr Irenaeus