Reconciliation

2 Corinthians 5:19, Romans 5:1

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Our devotion today is based upon Second Corinthians chapter five, verses 19 and 20. Saint Paul writes,

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:19)

When I was a teenager, my mother invited a distant relative to come to our house for dinner one day, and this was a woman that we hadn’t seen for quite a while. And the reason was she had gone through a kind of a difficult divorce. Someone we were related to, she had been married to this man and their marriage had now fallen apart.

The woman imagined in her mind that we were all angry with her and saw her as the reason for the divorce, which really was not the case. The problem was really someone in our family, and we had always sort of sided with her, if you will. We certainly felt no anger against her and we felt sorry for her. But because of all of this, she had pretty much stayed away from our family for many years.

Well, my mother happened to run into her shopping a couple of days earlier and invited her to dinner. And as we sat down to eat dinner this woman stood up even before we started to eat, and she started to tear up and she said, “I have to make an announcement to all of you. I want to let you know that I tried so hard to keep my marriage together, and I really did care, and I really did try hard. I am so sorry. I know you’re all angry with me.” And my mom immediately jumped up and ran to her side and hugged her and said, “no, that’s not the case at all. We’re not angry with you at all. We love you. We care about you. And we knew that you weren’t the one at fault in all of this.”

And she was so shocked and so surprised. In her mind, she imagined that we thought of her almost like an enemy. And that was not the case. And it was a beautiful moment of what Paul is talking about with the word reconciliation. Reconciliation means to put two things back together or two groups that appear to be fighting back together and to make everything peaceful once again.

Now a lot of people go through life feeling and imagining that God is their enemy. They think of God as someone who’s angry with them, and certainly he’s a God of justice. And they think of God as someone who is so holy and above them and powerful, and that he would want nothing to do with them because of their wickedness and their sin. And so it’s easy for all of us to sometimes feel this kind of animosity between us and God, as if he’s waiting to condemn us and to judge us. We think about Judas after he sold Jesus for those 30 pieces of silver. He mistakenly believed that Jesus could never forgive him and that he just needed to get himself away from Christ and from God Himself, and to go and commit suicide.

But through the work of Jesus Himself, the very Son of God, God has already reconciled us to himself by Jesus work for us on the cross. It’s an accomplished fact. It’s based upon something that’s already done in history. It’s not as though there’s something that has to change in you or about you, or something you have to do to somehow alter or change the heart of God toward you. God has already taken it upon himself to do it on your behalf. Saint Paul says in the book of Romans earlier,

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1)

It’s an already established thing, and that’s really what the entire work of God’s church is all about. The very things that God tells us to do in our congregations baptism, the Lord’s Supper, preaching His Word. It’s all about reconciling the sinner back to himself. The entire ministry is based upon this concept.

So I’d like to extend an invitation to you if you happen to be living your life sort of in fear of God. Maybe there’s something you did years ago or something that’s really bothering your conscience. I would encourage you to go and meet with a Lutheran pastor, and to learn more and more about how this holy God has reconciled himself with you and learned then how to live in that wonderful peace of God’s grace and forgiveness. Amen.