2 Corinthians 5:17 -The Bible opens with a compact and dark narrative: God creates a world full of order and life that humankind quickly and completely corrupts, supplanting its rich goodness with disorder and death (Genesis 1-11). That grim scene introduces a long account of God’s slowly developing plan to heal humanity’s evil and restore His creation. God’s plan introduces a hope that receives a memorable expression in the prophet Isaiah’s writings – he calls it “a new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22).
The New Testament announces the beginning of God’s new creation in Jesus (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15). While the fullness of what Jesus inaugurated has not yet arrived, we can experience a foretaste, a preview of it in our present lives. This lesson takes advantage of the New Year to explore the “newness of life” that Jesus gives to us now (Romans 6:4), a newness that anticipates the future fulfillment of God’s plan to set everything right.