RECONCILED
“Reconciliation” is one of the sweetest words in the
context of relationship. Anyone who has suffered a disruption in relationship
longs for reconciliation. “Reconciliation” is also often misunderstood.
Two
people who have not seen each other for years because of job or distance or
other circumstances cannot be said to be reconciled when they finally meet.
That is not reconciliation; that is reunion.
And if
you have a friend or family member who has wounded you somehow and they don’t
admit it, and you decide to pretend it never happened, you are not reconciled.
You might call that forgiveness, but it is not reconciliation. The issue has
not been confronted; the matter is not settled.
To
“reconcile” is to bring enemies into a state of friendship, to overcome
alienation, and to create a mutual compassion. Reconciliation is the healing of
broken relationships, the settling of the cause of their hostility so that they
can live together.[i]
If you
have been alienated in some way, and known the cold shoulder and icy remarks of
one you formerly loved, and if you know that insurmountable chasm that
separates you from your friend, sister, brother, etc., then you long for
reconciliation.
And this
is why, of all the metaphors for the application of the cross of Christ,
reconciliation is the most popular image. We get it. “Propitiation” is temple
language; “redemption” is slave language; “justification” is legal language –
but “reconciliation” is the most personal. This is heart language; this is the
language of home, of family, or of relationship.
So the
question we want to look at this morning from 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 is this:
How does the image of reconciliation help us to understand the impact of the
cross of Christ in our lives?
God Made the First Move
The first thing we need to know about reconciliation is
that we have been reconciled to God. Our relationship with God was disrupted by
sin. And sin rendered us powerless; it stole our desire to come to God; sin
made us resistant to God’s person; and therefore we were hostile to God. We
were enemies of God. The result of our sin may surprise you, but God was not
too happy with us. We were his enemies.
Here is
where things get quite odd. God is the offended party. The problem of sin is
incomparably more serious on his side than on ours. If I were an offended
party, my natural human reaction would be to wait until the offender apologizes
and makes amends. But God doesn’t do that. God makes the first move. God
initiates reconciliation.
Paul
uses clear language to tell us this: “All
this is from God, who through Christ reconciled himself to us…” (18a) and “in Christ God was reconciling the world to
himself…” (19a). God is the subject of these verses; God does the acting.
God reconciles; God gives; God appeals. We may feel some remorse and want to
apologize, but in reality we were powerless to do so. We have nothing to offer,
to contribute, to plead – God does it all. The only thing I can contribute to
reconciliation and my redemption is my sin.[ii]
God is the
author of reconciliation. And since we were in a helpless position, only God
could remove the cause of his own anger against us. And he did this when we
were his enemies, (see Romans 5:8, 10-11). How remarkable is that?
In 1492,
two Irish families, the Ormonds and the Kildares, were in the midst of a bitter
feud. The feud became an all-out fight, with the Kildares besieging the
Ormands. The Earl of Ormand and his family finally took refuge in the chapter
house of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. But the Earl of Kildare realized that the
fighting was getting out of control. These two families worshiped the same God,
in the same church, but were trying to kill each other. Kildare called out to
Ormand and promised not to seek revenge or try anything nasty. He wanted the
feud to be over. But the Earl of Ormand thought it was a trick and refused to
come out. So Kildare used his spear and hacked a hole in the door and thrust
his arm through. After a tense moment, his hand was grasped by another on the
inside. The door opened and the two men embraced, ending the feud.
God took
the initiative and chopped a hole through the hostility that separated us from
himself and offered his hand.
Christ was the Means of Reconciliation
If God was the author of reconciliation with us, Christ
was the means through which he accomplished reconciliation.
Again,
the language Paul uses clearly makes Jesus the agent of reconciliation. “All this is from God, who through Christ
reconciled us to himself…” (18b).
Notice
that the event of reconciliation is past tense. We have been reconciled to God
through Christ.
The
first thing to note affirms what we have already said: God was doing something
here and he did it through Christ.
The
second thing we should note is not detectable in English. The tense indicates
that the work of reconciliation is a finished work. It’s complete. There’s
nothing more to add. It is not something which is being done (like
sanctification) but something that is simply done – finished. What Christ did
on the cross was more than enough to bridge that chasm, that mountain, that
obstacle that kept us from God. It is no wonder that Jesus cried, “It is
finished!”
Once
more, as if to emphasize the point, Paul reiterates that God accomplished
reconciliation with Christ as the agent. “In
Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses
against them…” (19a). This is almost word-for-word with v. 18 but with
subtle differences. Paul first
said “through Christ” but now says “In Christ God…” inferring that this act was
a Father-Son work. It would be wrong to think, as some have thought, that God’s
anger would not be satisfied until his own Son hung grotesquely bleeding from a
cross. Jesus did not have to die to convince his Father to stay his wrath from
us. Rather, we see a mysterious oneness in Father and Son as they work to bring
reconciliation to bear. Of
Christ it is written, “For in him all the
fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself
all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his
cross” (Col. 1:19-20).
That
Paul now references the world reveals that God’s intention was that
reconciliation was meant to be universal. The hand thrust through the door of
reconciliation must be grasped, however. You and I must receive in faith what
Christ has done.
But
wait, what has God in Christ done for us? Paul wrote, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin…” (21a). To be
honest, I either forget this profound truth or cannot grasp the impact of it in
my life. So I don’t blame you if you struggle with this concept. Christ became
sin, not that he sinned, but took on our sin and became as one who bore all our
sin.
A young
monk was struggling with his own sins and was quite distressed. Martin Luther
wrote to this monk and said this, “Learn to know Christ and him crucified.
Learn to sing to him and say ‘Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your
sin. You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours. You became
what you were not, that I might become what I was not.”
How do
you grasp that? Yet here it is. Our sins are not counted against us. The
Psalmist said, “If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O LORD, who could stand”
(Ps 130:3). Jesus became sin “so that in
him we might become the righteousness of God” (21b).
I
believe Luther’s advice is worth meditating upon.
We are the Medium of the Message
Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “the medium is the
message.” You may have heard of this before. It means that the medium conveys
the message so closely that the characteristics of the medium reflect the
message itself.
That’s
kind of what Paul means when it comes to the ministry of reconciliation. First
he says, “All this is from God, who
through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation” (18). Then he adds that God entrusted “to us the message of reconciliation” (19c). And finally, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ,
God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be
reconciled to God” (20).
What
does it mean to be an ambassador for Christ? It means to represent Christ with
authority. That authority comes not solely from presenting the King’s message,
but more so from being the King’s message. On the one hand, yes, we proclaim
that God in Christ reconciled the world to himself. But on the other hand, we
demonstrate what that means in ourselves.
Paul
said, “Be reconciled to God.” That’s the first step. Then the second step is to
show that we have grasped the meaning of reconciliation in our own
relationships. For you see, it is impossible to be reconciled to God while
remaining unreconciled to one another.
Remember
Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant (Mt. 18:21-35)? The king forgave the
servant’s debt amounting to millions of dollars, but this servant turned on a
fellow servant who owed him only a few bucks. What he demonstrated was a
failure to appreciate mercy by showing mercy to others.
In the
same way, God has shown incredible love by reaching out to us through Christ,
paying the price for our sin on the cross, and reconciling us to himself. We
cannot be the church of Christ, proclaim the message of reconciliation, without
being reconciled first to God, and then to each other. To live in estrangement
from fellow believers alienates you not only from those people but from God as
well. That’s the negative angle.
The
positive angle is that when we do forgive one another, make peace in our
relationships, and walk together in love, we become the message of
reconciliation. People will see that we are followers of Jesus when we love one
another.
There is a difference between reconciliation and
forgiveness. On the cross, Jesus provided for the forgiveness of everyone. But
not everyone will be reconciled with him because they will not accept what
Christ is offering them.
The same
is true for you and I. You can forgive someone who hurts you, even if they
don’t seek reconciliation. But there won’t be reconciliation unless you can
overcome the enmity that exists between you.
If we
follow God’s model – and it won’t be easy – we will reach out to the one who
offended us and talk, work it out, and find resolution. You might wait a long
time for the other person to apologize if you don’t reach out.
I think
that pride blinds us to the reality of most situations. Unlike God, we are not
totally without blame. In fact, because of misunderstanding or missing facts,
we all share in the causing of the wound. Because I have a sensitive
conscience, I have at times been racked with conviction. I have felt more
righteous than I should. Then, when I can’t stand it anymore, I go and
apologize for my part in the trouble. I don’t like being wrong. But I often
have something that I am wrong about in those situations. My belief is that
both sides need to come clean and forgive each other.
How does
the message of reconciliation help us to understand the impact of the cross? It
is life-changing. It can free you from your sin and guilt when you realize how
much God loved you even when you were his enemy. And it can free you from the
unnecessary antagonism you feel in so many of your relationships. Let me say
this: In this church, there cannot be unreconciled relationships. Be reconciled
to God; Be reconciled to each other, in the name of Christ.
AMEN
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