"As we work together with him, we entreat you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says,
'At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have helped you.'
Look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation!" (2 Corinthians 6:1-2)
We aren't merely waiting for the afterlife. Salvation begins now.
Yes, yes, of course, the Christian hope includes life beyond the grip of death. Yes, absolutely, the story of Jesus' death and resurrection means that I don't have to be afraid of the grave getting the last word over my life or yours. But to hear the New Testament tell it, we aren't only waiting for our faith to mean something after our hearts stop. We are living in God's saving love right now. It has already begun, and you and I are already drawn into it.
Letting that sink in is really important, so I'm grateful to have the chance to take a closer look at these words which many of us heard in worship on Ash Wednesday, continuing the train of thought we began with yesterday. Once again, we have Paul writing to Christians in the city of Corinth, and the immediately preceding sentences reminded us that "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them" and then pleading, "Be reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:19-20). So Paul has just finished saying, "God has already reconciled with you through Christ--from God's side of the equation, that's a done deal and an accomplished fact. I'm just asking you to live right now like what God says is true, really is true." In other words, the Christian message is not a sales pitch that if you do X, Y, and Z then you have a reservation at the Celestial Country Club when you die, but rather that God has already reconciled with us through Christ, and the only question is whether we will dare to believe it is true and be what God says we already are.
And if that's true (and again, Paul seems to think it is--let's trust him on this one), then the point of today's verses makes total sense: salvation isn't only a future reality for the ones who have locked in the offer for after death by praying the right prayer, believing the right facts, or behaving the right ways. Salvation begins NOW, and it means a whole new way of life RIGHT NOW because we don't have to live like we are estranged and alienated from God any longer. We aren't.
Maybe that's the news we really aren't prepared to hear yet: God isn't angry at you. God doesn't hate you. God doesn't hold out a conditional, transactional deal that says, "I'll like you and let you into my good graces after you die, but only if you'll complete the following list," but rather speaks an unconditional declaration, "I have reconciled you already from my side." And if that declaration really is unconditional because it is from God's side and based on God's action in Christ already, then yes indeed, salvation IS a present-tense reality I am swimming in already, not just a possible future destination dependent on my ability to hold up my end of a deal.
And if indeed, salvation really is a NOW thing, then I don't have to stay stuck in the dead-end routines of selfishness, bitterness, cruelty, apathy, and greed that have been killing me slowly while they've been telling me I'm living "the good life." I don't have to be forever entangled in the familiar fear of "the other," the well-worn ruts of prejudice, or the self-destructive habits I have gotten used to. Those things are part of what I am freed FROM, and that freedom is available now. I'm the dunderhead who keeps running back into bondage and held captive by those powers and needing to be pulled out of them again and again. But from God's side, the estrangement is over. Now, as Paul says, is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.
What will it look like in the new day to take that seriously? How might we live, here and now, as people experiencing the present-tense day of salvation, as well as the hope of the future?
Lord Jesus, allow us to live as your saved people in this day you have given us.
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