Holiness of Hard Things - Week Four: "God's Reconciliation"

It’s the Fourth Sunday of Lent 

Lent is a season of preparation, reflection, and repentance.  It’s also a season when we can learn what it means to discover the holiness of hard things, which is also the title of this sermon series we're working through. 

Today, we are going to read some mail from the Apostle Paul. 

It is kind of interesting, isn't it, that we are reading someone else's mail when we read all of Paul's letters?

And Paul made one of the most essential claims about reconciliation between God and us.    

But first, I want to talk about two very important things: Truth and Reconciliation. 

Truth & Reconciliation go Hand In Hand.   There can be no reconciliation without truth.  

After Apartheid ended in South Africa, the black majority of the country was asked by leaders like Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu to put aside the need for revenge in favor of reconciliation.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed, and those who had participated in torture, false imprisonment, and worse were allowed to find clemency and forgiveness if they told the truth about what they had done.  

Desmond Tutu’s work on forgiveness flew in the face of what many South Africans wanted. Still, keeping the newly restructured nation from coming apart at the seams was necessary.  

I  love this quote from Desmond Tutu about the necessity for truth to bring reconciliation. 

“Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.”

The word reconciliation in the New Testament has an interesting connotation.  It's very similar to the Hebrew word for repentance, which can be interpreted as an "about face."  

And this is what we need to be reconciled with the Divine. “About Face”  We need to face the truth about ourselves, and be willing to turn around to return back to God because most of us spend our lives running from our destiny.  

GOD ALWAYS MEETS US ON THE ROAD BACK TO GOD

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

The Church at Corinth is a brief primer on Paul's struggles to combat what he believed to be false teaching that kept his early converts from staying true to the Gospel and the implications of the Resurrection. 

There were divisions in the church and differences in theology. Some taught that believers do not rise from the dead and that the only thing Christians should be focused on is transforming this life.  

Paul was a both-and-kind of guy regarding resurrection.  

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view;[a] even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view,[b] we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,[c] not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As we mentioned before, Paul’s overall view of what the Resurrection brings to us all is found in the word reconciliation. 

The word is a combination of two Greek words: kata + allasso. The prefix kata intensifies the words it is paired with. So, while it also means change from one thing to another (or one direction to another), kata makes it something radical. Reconciliation - Greek translates into “becoming another” or “radical change.”

To find our way back to God and away from our desired paths, we must be able to tell the truth about ourselves and discover God’s love for us. 

A call back to the Prodigal Son story…  

This passage is often read on the same Sundays as the story of the Prodigal Son.  We heard this preached a few weeks ago, but let me refresh our memories. 

The Prodigal Son story is the story of two sons: one who demands his inheritance from his father, which in the 1st century would have been a family-shaming act, and the other who does what he is expected to do until he doesn't.  

The younger son takes his inheritance and spends it all, finding himself in abject poverty. Finally, he tells the truth about himself before heading home.  

He rehearses the speech he plans to give to his father, whom he has disgraced, returning to a village that will not receive him well. He knows that he will most likely have to walk a gauntlet of shame.  

But his father sees him coming, pulls up his robes, and runs to meet him before anything can happen.  

What It Takes 

Humility and Truth-Telling - being honest with ourselves

Willingness to Change - let go of what hasn’t worked for us. 

Trust that God will find us on the road. 

GOD ALWAYS MEETS US ON THE ROAD BACK TO GOD