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2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Put Humpty Together Once more

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two Corinthians 5:16-21

Put Humpty Together Again

Dr. Mickey Anders

It's a children'southward poem generally ignored by adults. In fact, its message seems like nonsense:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a peachy fall;
All the king's horses, and all the male monarch'due south men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Just a clever trivial rhyme often animated with a funny egg figure perched on a wall. Just today I want u.s.a. to finish and accept a closer expect. I am frequently amazed at the profound meanings that come from children's books and children'south nursery rhymes like this one. Possibly the poem remains pop among children because it has a deeper significant that we all tin sense.

In this silly piffling verse form, nosotros have portrayed our human being condition and the futility of most efforts to set the globe in which we live. And today I want to propose that it can serve as an outline for understanding what Paul says in our text for today.

The start line says, "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall." This line is the beginning of the poem but it as well parallels of the start of humankind.

The verse form sets up the action with a unproblematic declarative statement. Perhaps it was a lovely spring day with flowers blooming and birds chirping. From his perch, Humpty declares that all is right with the earth.

We tin all identify with the peaceful placidity of Humpty as he sat on the wall. But for most of us we have to become dorsum a bit. Things are mess now, but we can look back to a better time. Tin can you remember back to such an idyllic fourth dimension? How far back do yous accept to get to recover the innocence of your youth. Dorsum earlier the Fall. Back earlier you made a mess of life. Back when relationships were right. After the Autumn, we await dorsum with envy at the simple times of sitting on a wall.

The Bible says the same affair happened in the beginning of time. God sat humankind on a wall. Genesis 1:26 says, "Let us make human being in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heaven, and over the livestock, and over all the globe, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created humankind in his epitome as the apex of creation.

Information technology was equally if God made humankind and set them on a wall. People were able to relate perfectly with God, to feel his nearness, to communicate personally with him. God saturday humans high on the wall with wisdom, ability, cognition, and God-likeness.

Another analogy portrays God as a burning bivouac at night and all God'southward new creation are all joined hands in a grand circle effectually the Calorie-free. In this idyllic state, every person could see the light and anybody saw all their fellow humans with the lite of God reflected in their faces. Similar Humpty perched on the wall, this original state perfectly reflected the Divine plan.

Simply then something happened in our poem, something happened in creation, and something happened in our lives. In all 3, we can describe information technology as the Fall.

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great autumn…"

The poem gives us no clue to the cause of Humpty's fall. Maybe the wall was slippery. Maybe he became distracted or tried to reach too far. In the poem, the Fall is a mystery, but not in creation, and not with u.s..

The Bible says that humans tried to reach higher than they were meant to. We can moving-picture show Adam and Eve on their tiptoes reaching just beyond their grasp. God said they were not to consume of the fruit, but they wanted to exist similar God. Just a little further. The snake said this fruit would exist good.

When the showtime man tried to reach that which was out of reach, he fell! And great was the fall thereof!

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Genesis iii tells the story this way:

"Now the serpent was more subtle than any animate being of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the adult female, 'Has God really said, "You shall not swallow of any tree of the garden?"'"

"The woman said to the serpent, 'Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat of it, neither shall you lot touch on it, lest you die."'"

"The serpent said to the woman, 'You won't surely die, for God knows that in the day you lot eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'

"When the woman saw that the tree was good for nutrient, and that it was a please to the optics, and that the tree was to be desired to make i wise, she took of its fruit, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate."

This Fall represents the entry signal of sin and failure into creation. This sin problem lies at the root of all the struggles of organized religion. The sin problem will occupy the adjacent sixty-six books of the Bible.

All of us today have fallen too. Our Fall has to do with more than than but the earliest past. The fall is non something in the by. Information technology is something very much present right now. It is personal for each one of us. For each of us comes to a point when nosotros want that which volition be harmful to the states.We stop listening to God and permit the serpent tell the states what to practise! We change our loyalty from the Creator to the creature. Nosotros achieve for the forbidden fruit.

The Bible has warned us. "Pride goes before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a autumn" (Proverbs 16:18)."Therefore let him who thinks he stands exist careful that he doesn't fall" (one Corinthians ten:12).

In the illustration of the campfire where everyone was gathered in a pleasant circle, holding hands facing the Low-cal of God, suddenly i and and so another turns their back on the low-cal, faces the darkness and moves away from God.Before yous know it all of the creatures are wandering in the darkness, far from God, and now instead of seeing others reflecting the light of God on their faces, we see the shadow side of life. The dark shadows loom before us and bring fear and alienation. Nosotros are groping in the darkness trying to find our way. Lost and agape.

One faux step and of a sudden we find our lives tumbling out of control. We never intended it to turn out this way. We only turned away from the light for a moment. Nosotros just stretched out for ane enticing bit of fruit. Simply suddenly the consequences of our sin are far greater than we expected.

Of a sudden, nosotros all lie, similar Humpty, at the bottom of the wall – cleaved, shattered, fragmented. We lie there, knowing that unless something drastic happens our fall volition be fatal.

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a dandy fall;
All the king'southward horses, and all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again."

Of a sudden, much to our relief, up ride the rex'southward men and their horses to put us back together again. Merely who are these men? And who is their king? The verse form once once more leaves us in the dark. We have no idea who these "male monarch's men" are, just we tin see them picking up the broken pieces of our eggshell Humpty, trying to fit them together. Perhaps they attempt to gum the pieces dorsum together. Peradventure they have record. Just the poem makes it clear that in that location was no fixing what was broken. The king's men fail. They couldn't put Humpty together once more.

We've had our experience with the king'due south men too. Perhaps today we would telephone call these failed efforts by names like Oprah, Sally, and Montel. Maybe nosotros call them psychotherapy, hypnosis, or tarot cards. Maybe these king'south men are Ouija boards or self-help books. Peradventure the king's men are considerate bar tenders who listen as nosotros cry in our beer. Many have tried New Age organized religion or felt that quartz crystals would put us back together. All of these are only Band-Aids feebly attempting to heal our brokenness.

I was dreaming prepositions last night. Someone had suggested self-help books all of which failed to help this self. I replied in my dream, "It makes no sense to me. In fact, information technology makes no sense OF me TO me." Maybe that'south the problem with all the king's men.

And in the end, we have concluded that the children's poem is exactly right – "All the king's horses, and all the male monarch's men, Couldn't put Humpty together again."

To what do we compare this part of the children'south verse form when we consider the Creation story? I would suggest that male monarch'due south men stand for the failed attempts to reconcile humans and God as told in the first 39 books of the Bible. The early patriarchs might be king's men, but they failed to put that broken relationship dorsum together. The Law of Moses represented a peachy endeavor. Everyone thought that finally the king's men would put us back together. But in the end, the Law failed to achieve its purpose.

Finally, God sent his Son, the King himself. The King could exercise what all the male monarch's men could not.

Romans 8:3: " For what the law couldn't do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful mankind and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh."

Galatians 2:16: "Even so knowing that a human being is not justified by the works of the law but through organized religion in Jesus Christ."

Ephesians 2:15: "Having abolished in the mankind the hostility, the police of commandments independent in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the ii, making peace; and might reconcile them both in ane body to God through the cross."

2 Corinthians 5:18-21: "Merely all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry building of reconciliation; namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the earth to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to united states of america the give-and-take of reconciliation. We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, every bit though God were entreating past us: we beg you lot on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; then that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

The trouble with the law was that information technology worked on the outside of u.s.. It tried to patch usa up, bandage us together, use a fiddling beginning aid cream and a piece of record.

Hither is the only One who tin put humankind back together once again. He does it past starting all over and making a new creation. His name is Jesus. The Male monarch can exercise what all the male monarch's men cannot do. The rex's men cannot put usa together once again because they did not make us to showtime with. Only the 1 who made us in the commencement can put us dorsum together again. That is what the gospel is all about.

The solution to our brokenness does not come when we are reformed, rehabilitated, or re-educated. It simply comes when nosotros are recreated. It will not practice to plough over a new leaf; we must begin a new life nether a new master. We must be built-in again and make a new commencement.

two Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new."

When we trust Christ, we are no longer God's enemies, or strangers or foreigners to him. We take been reconciled to God. We have been brought from wandering in the darkness back to the light of God. When we are reconciled to God and humankind, nosotros once again relish the campfire glow and the warmth of correct relationships.

Just there's a last office of the story equally told in the Scripture passage. We are appointed to be Rex'due south men, not ambassadors of those simulated kings who failed to put Humpty back together, merely ambassadors of Christ.

1 Corinthians 5:18-twenty: "But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to u.s. the ministry of reconciliation; namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to u.s.a. the give-and-take of reconciliation. Nosotros are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, exist reconciled to God."

We exercise not have the ability to put people together, but we know the correct Rex. We know the i who tin! And our job is to go into the darkness and discover people headed in the wrong direction. We tell them about the Light of God, betoken them to Christ. And God is still in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Christ is yet in the business of picking up the pieces of broken men and women and making them whole once again.

We might finish the good beginning of the nursery rhyme this way:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a groovy fall,
And all the king'due south horses and all the rex's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together once more.

And so the real King came to his aid,
Brought reconciliation, not a Band-aid.
Jesus brought new nativity and a new creation,
Made Humpty whole and brought jubilation.
Placed Humpty Dumpty back on the wall,
So he gave to Humpty a brand new call,
Ambassador of Christ is his new proper noun,
Healing the broken is now his game.

If you detect yourself broken at the foot of a wall,
To the Rex of Kings you should give a phone call,
And but like Humpty Dumpty of quondam,
Christ will come and make y'all whole.

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible.

Copyright 2006, Mickey Anders. Used by permission.