The Great Reconciler!

Mary Oliver states, “If you are too much like myself, what shall I learn of you, or you of me?

Diversity is a gift, but it is also a challenge.  It’s a gift when we stand open-hearted to hear and receive from each other.  It’s a challenge when we take a judgmental, defensive posture; Judgmental because I don’t understand where you are coming from; defensive because your views are different from mine.  Judgment and Personal Defense never gets us very far.  Relationship does. When we take a posture in willingness to listen and learn, than true reconciliation is born.

Repentance is also needed, because there is such a great barrier that exists between gender, ethnicity and religious orientation. It’s truly a journey, but there is always hope because Jesus made a way for us at the Cross.  There is always level ground at the Cross.  We lay down our pretenses, our labels, and our false accusations.

At the Cross there is true repentance, healing and reconciliation.  But we must journey to the Cross together, and let the Life and Death of Jesus speak to us; His pain born in ours, His loss, His grief born in ours.  Only Jesus is the Great reconciler that we long for.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^[a] The old has gone, the new is here!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that 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 5:17

Let Jesus become our message of reconciliation; the one who tears down the barriers and the dividing walls of hostility. Ephesians 2:14 And brings us true peace…