The Truth About Reconciliation

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It was about two and a half years ago that Pope Francis left the confines of Vatican City for the wide expanses of Canada on his self-proclaimed "Pilgrimage of Penance." The purpose of the pope's pilgrimage was - in his own words - "to tell you in person of my sorrow, to implore God's forgiveness, healing and reconciliation." (from the 2022/07/26 NPR report). And in a Tweet from the pope (yes, he does tweet!) on the eve of his trip to Canada, he stated that he hoped "with God's grace, that my penitential pilgrimage might contribute to the journey of reconciliation already undertaken..." (PopeFrancis@Pontifex-July 23, 2022).

As was to be expected, the pope's apology was met with a mixture of responses. As one survivor of a Catholic-run residential school stated, "Part of me rejoiced. Part of me is sad. Part of me is numb. But I am glad I lived long enough to have witnessed this apology." (from the above NPR report) Others were not so gracious. For many, the pope's apology fell short, and they listed various issues that they wanted or even demanded the pontiff bring up. 

In our fallen world, the need for reconciliation is a given, because either intentionally or unintentionally, we will do or say things which will cause a rift in a relationship. And we must be clear on what reconciliation is and is not. One reporter was interviewing a woman who stated that reconciliation is important, but then she added these words: "whatever that entails." How will reconciliation ever take place unless we truly know what it entails? 

Please turn with me to the 5th chapter of the Apostle Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, beginning with verse 11 as we hear what God says about reconciliation. Hear God's unchanging Word. 

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade [everyone]. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.

We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 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 men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 5:11 - 6:2; NIV) This is God's Word.

Pastor Glenn Schaeffer tells about a time he was giving a children's sermon. He held up a summer shirt that he wore around the house, and told the children that someone had said the shirt was ugly and should be thrown away. Glenn said, "I'm having trouble forgiving the person who said those mean things. Do you think I should forgive that person?"

Glenn's six-year-old daughter, Alicia, raised her hand. "You should."

"But why?" asked Glenn. "This person hurt my feelings."

"Because you are married to her," Alicia replied.

Hurt feelings may be a reason reconciliation is needed, but at other times the issues go much deeper, and the ensuing alienation assumes hostility has taken place and people have become estranged or even violent enemies. And so reconciliation needs to take place.

Five times in just three verses of our text, the word reconcile or reconciliation appears. The Apostle Paul tells us that we have been given a ministry of reconciliation, and with that ministry we have received the message concerning reconciliation and what it constitutes. As ambassadors, we are representing the King of kings in an alien culture. And our responsibility is to tell people, who are enemies of God by nature, that they can be reconciled to God. This is the message we have been given to proclaim as faithful ambassadors: Be reconciled to God.

But why do we need to be reconciled to God? The answer to this question has never been popular, and even more so in our culture. We see ourselves as really nice people, and God must be quite pleased to have us on his side.

But to understand how good the Good News of Jesus the Messiah is, we have to first understand the really bad news that each and every one of us stand guilty under God and deserve his holy wrath. God says that we are all sinners. We all deserve death. "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). "The soul who sins is the one who will die" (Ez 18:4,20). "There is no one righteous, not even one" (Romans 3:10).

Now the only way that a Holy God can reconcile with sinners is by not counting their trespasses against them. The message of reconciliation which we have been given is that God was in Christ reconciling us. Reconciliation is God's work, and he designed a means to reconcile us to himself. Through Christ's death on the cross, he took the judgement we deserved upon himself. Through us as God's ambassadors he is begging and appealing: Be reconciled to God.

It's not that we have to "twist God's arm" so to speak, to forgive us. The prophet Micah declared, "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives transgressions ..." (Micah 7:18). It is in God's very nature to forgive those who come to him in repentance. God is willing to erase our sin as we come to him in faith. In fact, the psalmist tells us that God will remove our sin from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12) while the prophet Micah says the he will cast our iniquities into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). [If you really believe that God has done that for you, it's okay to say "Amen!"] This is the good news that we have to share. This is the biblical understanding of reconciliation.

How does the biblical understanding of reconciliation differ from all the calls to reconciliation that we hear about today in the media? In the biblical understanding, reconciliation is seen as an act by which people are delivered from a condition of estrangement and alienation with God and restored to fellowship with God. This act is accomplished by God through the power of the sacrificial death of Jesus. The Apostle lays out this truth for us in verse 21: "God made him [that is, Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." In other words, on the cross God treated Jesus as if he was a sinner though he was not a sinner. Why? On our behalf, so God's justice could be satisfied. And there is a flip side to this... the last half of the verse. Now God treats you as righteous. On the cross, God treats his Son as if he lived your life so that he could treat you as if you lived his Son's life. That's how God sees you. That's why there's no condemnation. That's why and how you can be reconciled to God.

While biblical reconciliation is seen as an act, those who are looking for reconciliation today see it as a process. The aggrieved party lists certain conditions that must be fulfilled, and if they are fulfilled, then there is a chance for reconciliation. For example, in an interview on CBC, a spokesman for the Squamish Nation stated that the opportunity for the 2030 Olympics to be held in British Columbia offers a chance for reconciliation. "Approval will go a long ways toward reconciliation." How that would go a long ways toward reconciliation was not specified. And the price tag on just that one condition has been estimated to be up to $4 billion. And along the way, what new conditions will be made that will affect the possibility of reconciliation?

There is a story in the Old Testament that gives us more insight into the nature of reconciliation. Joseph, the beloved son of the patriarch Jacob, is sold as a slave to Midianite merchants by his jealous brothers. Slavery, in that day, was often a fate worse than death. The merchants, in turn, sell him as a slave in Egypt to one of Pharaoh's officials. [I won't recount the full story - you can read it for yourself in Genesis chapters 37 through 50.] But here is the "Coles Notes" version. Joseph winds up in jail on a trumped-up charge by the official's wife. After some time, both the pharaoh's cupbearer and baker offend their master and are put into the same prison where Joseph is confined. Both of them have dreams which Joseph interprets, and their dreams come to pass just as he interpreted them. Two years later the pharaoh has a troubling dream which none of his people can interpret. The cupbearer remembers Joseph and tells the pharaoh about Joseph. Joseph is brought out of prison and tells the pharaoh not only his dream but the interpretation as well. Seven years of abundance will be followed by seven years of famine. Joseph is made "vice-pharaoh" and institutes a plan to stockpile grain in the good years so that it is available in the lean years. 

When the famine also hits Canaan, Jacob sends his sons - except for the youngest one - to Egypt to buy food. After the second trip for food, Joseph makes himself known to his brothers. Joseph then sends for his father and the rest of the family who come to live in that part of Egypt known as Goshen.

After many years Jacob dies. And the brothers wonder what Joseph may now do since their father is dead. "He may hold a grudge against us and pay us back for all the wrongs we did to him."

So they sent word to Joseph that their father Jacob had left instructions for him to forgive his brothers the sins and wrongs they had committed in treating him so badly. "Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father." And when their message came to Joseph, he wept.

And why did Joseph weep? He wept because his brothers hadn't understood that he had truly forgiven them. And Joseph said, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended it to harm me, but God intended it for good..."

Over my lifetime I had read these words of Joseph many times, but had not stopped to think about his question: "Am I in the place of God?" What is the "place of God" that Joseph is speaking of?

It is God's place as judge. And this is critical when it comes to the issue of reconciliation. Victims will look at how badly they have been hurt, and will take the place of God. They will become their own moral authority. They will pronounce judgement on those who have hurt and wronged them, But only God has the right to sit in judgement. Only God has the knowledge to sit in judgement. Only God has the power to judge without becoming evil himself. That is why God says, "It is mine to avenge: I will repay," says the Lord (Romans 12:19). Joseph, who had been terribly wronged, chose not to sit in God's place of judgement.

And in choosing not to sit in God's place of judgement, Joseph also learned another important truth - one that freed him from bitterness and hurt - and allowed him to live a good life. "Yes, you may have meant it for evil, but God intended it for good." Joseph learned that God can take the worst of human intentions and somehow use them for good and God's glory.

Years ago, when the residential school situation was just beginning to get more newsprint and airtime, I was on a ferry coming back from the Sunshine Coast when I overheard a fellow nearby say the word "Kamloops." Well, being from Kamloops got my attention, and I turned to him and we began a conversation. He was a native fellow and as we continued talking, I learned that he had been a student at a residential school. I asked him about his experience at the school. And his statement floored me. He told me that it was one of the best things that happened to him in his life. It got him out of his home which was filled with alcoholism and abuse. Without the residential school, he would not have gotten a university degree and become the professional that he now was. But most importantly, he would not have seen his need for a Saviour and accepted him. What others may have meant for evil, God meant for good in his life. The bitterness and heartache and blame that is heard in so many "residential survivor" stories was not heard in his story as I listened to him. But in our culture, his story has not been allowed to become part of the ongoing narrative of the residential schools.

The calls for reconciliation in our culture come up short. Their hopes are that we will be able to work together... we will be able to walk together... we will put our guard down so we can be stronger together. But all these wonderful goals fall so far short of the Bible's glorious vision of reconciliation. In New Testament times there were two groups of people who were alienated from each other - Jews and Gentiles. The Apostle Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians that "[Jesus] himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility...". Paul continues, "[God's] purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility" (Ephesians 2:14f). Only in and through Christ and his death on the cross will the hostility come to an end. In Christ Jesus the two have become one - one family, the family of God. Jesus has not only made peace between these long-time adversaries, he is himself our peace. 

No matter how good our intentions ... no matter how noble our aspirations, they will ultimately fail. Without Jesus Christ at the centre of reconciliation, all our attempts at reconciliation are doomed to failure. We deal with the symptoms of alienation, and not the root cause. No matter how much money is thrown at the problem, no matter how many laws are made to deal with racism, no government on earth can change a person's heart. All our attempts to solve the problem are piecemeal or superficial, resulting only in temporary or minor improvements. It's like playing the game of whack-a-mole, the arcade game in which players use a wooden mallet to hit toy moles, which appear at random, back into their holes, while other moles keep popping up around them.

In the 1960's, the U.S. was going through its own crisis between the blacks and whites. Vivian Malone was a young black woman who enrolled as a student at the University of Alabama in 1963. Federal troops helped to ensure her entrance into the school, but then Governor George Wallace tried to block her way. When he failed, Malone became the first African-American student ever to graduate from that school.

Years later, Governor Wallace was taken in his wheelchair to a church in Montgomery, Alabama, where he asked black people to forgive him for his racism, bigotry, and specifically his ill-treatment of Vivian Malone. He asked Malone for forgiveness. Malone said that she had forgiven the governor years before.

When a reporter asked why she had done that, Malone said, "I'm a Christian, and I grew up in the church. I was taught that we are all equal in the eyes of God. I was also taught that you forgive people, no matter what. And that is why I had to do it" (Newsweek, Oct 24, 2005).

As ambassadors of the King of kings, we have been given very good news... trustworthy news to share. 

Tell it often ... tell it well: Be reconciled to God. 

AMEN.

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View this sermon presented live here: https://youtu.be/t4WGGmVdizk