Lord, we dream about justice.

We glimpse for a moment, 

    a world at one, a world put to rights, a world where things work out, 

    where societies function fairly and efficiently,

    where we not only know what we ought to do but actually do it.

And then we wake up and come back to reality.

 

…from the very beginning, two thousand years ago,

we the followers of Jesus have always maintained that

 

You took the tears of the world and made them Your own,

    carrying them all the way to Your cruel and unjust death

    to carry out God’s rescue operation,

and that You took the joy of the world and brought it to new birth

    as You rose from the dead and thereby launched God’s new creation.

 

N.T. Wright, 1948-, British New Testament Scholar, retired bishop

 

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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: 

The old has gone, the new is here!  

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ 

and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 

    that 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.