Therefore, if any [are] in Christ, [they are] new creation[s]; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. (v. 17)

John Bishop tells of a London slum child whose major refuge was his Roman Catholic day school. In the course of things, his school was visited by a physician who did medical examinations for the students. As the skinny little fellow left the doctor’s room, one of the nuns asked, "Well, Jimmy, what did the doctor say to you?"

Jimmy answered, "He took one look at me and said, ‘What a miserable specimen you are!’ " Now the boy paused for a moment and his face brightened. "But he didn’t know that I’d had my first Communion, did he, Sister?"

Perhaps that story will strike you as little more than a quaint bit of sentiment. I report it, however, as a profound declaration of…