Created Space

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, the new creation has come: 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.  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.  

--2 Corinthians 5:16-20

Last week one of the vocabulary words my high school students learned was reconciliation. The word means to mend a relationship, to bring two unlike things into agreement, or to come to terms with something.  Again, this week, as the boys were studying the World War I era in U.S. History, the term irreconcilable came up. The irreconcilables were those who absolutely refused to agree to the stipulations set forth in the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. And then this morning I read in 2 Corinthians 5:19 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" (italics mine).

So now I'm wondering: What exactly does it mean to be reconciled to God in Christ? What is the message of reconciliation? Is anyone truly irreconcilable?

There are those whose version of the message of reconciliation grabs its hearers in a chokehold and yanks them toward the end result without considering the means. There are those who have been nearly irreparably wounded by this distortion of the message and have limped away from this perversion of God, never to return.  Reconciliation is not merely conforming to a lifestyle or adapting to a new set of beliefs.

As believers reconciled to God in Christ and given in turn the message of reconciliation to the world, we are not here to force anything. We are not here to break people so that we can splint their brokenness with our own rigidity. We are here to shout our joy from the rooftops:

Our sins are not being counted against us!

You who snapped at your son this morning and still hear your words ringing in the air between you. . .

You who sit mute next to your friend and can't shape wordsaround the truth you wish would ring in her heart. . .

You who struggle with perfection. . .

You who struggle with addiction. . .

You who cheated on your wife last week. . .

You who cheated on a test in fifth grade. . .

You who are plagued with guilt for sneaking a cookie. . .
You who won't look yourself in the mirror because you don't want to feel any guilt at all. . .

God knows.

And he knew.

And he is not counting people's sins against them!

We're getting out of jail free!

It's a grace day.

A grace day. 

Reconciliation is not about becoming a Christian. Reconciliation is about your grace day--the day Christ climbed to the cross carrying the full knowledge of the pain to which he would subject himself and the full weight of what he was accomplishing for humankind.

On the cross, the Father broke from the Son so that we--you and I--could be reconciled to Him. The rending of Father from Son in that moment opened a gap, and the gap is now filled with the souls of the ones who will claim their grace day. Where his blood poured out, his children pour in. You are invited into the created space--the created grace--between the Father and the Son.

This is reconciliation. It is so far beyond morals, lifestyles, music styles, and dress codes that it leaves those things completely shriveled and powerless in the dust on the hill at the foot of the ancient cross.

From the cross, Jesus makes his appeal: "Be reconciled to God."

Believe. 
Place your hand into the hole in my side.
Be reconciled. 
Place yourself into the space I created, here next to the heart of God. 

This is where new creations are born. This is reconciliation.

ErinRMS 2/26/16