Mission of Reconciliation: The Focus

You are at the core of reconciliation. You are at the core of reconciliation. You are the focus of reconciliation.

It is very easy when there is conflict to focus on what the problem is. What is “it” that is causing a break in your relationship, with others or with God? Even just mentioning it, might be enough for you to scroll through your own internal social media page looking for what “it” is that is causing you such problems. In fact, a pastor and counselor and friend I know, instructs pastors on how to identify the “it” involved in conflict, because often what we think is the problem really isn’t. We might think that the “it” is what someone said or what we said, but it wasn’t just what was said, it was how it was said and how that affected each person based on their own experiences and understandings. The “it” is important to reconciliation. It can be hard to deal with. It can be a challenge to identify and address. “It” is important. But not as important as you.

So, when we talk about the mission of reconciliation, it is first and foremost a personal mission, a mission focused not as much on what someone did or didn’t do, but on the person. It is focused on the person with whom when we see them, we want to look the other way. It is focused on the person whom when they speak or write or post something on social media, we reflexively cringe. It is focused on the person with whom you are in conflict from something last week, from last year, from as long as you can remember. It is focused on that person and on you and your person. But most importantly the mission of reconciliation is focused on the person of Jesus.

Jesus’ mission was one of reconciliation. In fact, Jesus’ mission was what God’s mission has always been, one that was focused on people. It started the first time a relationship was broken, in the Garden of Eden when God sought out Adam and Eve after they ate of the tree they were not supposed to. If you look at God’s words to them, the very first question to them when they are hiding is “where are you?” God wanted to be with them and for them to be with him, not hiding from him. He didn’t like them being apart from him. Only after what matters most, does he ask the man if he ate what he wasn’t supposed to and the woman “what have you done?” How often do we get those questions reversed! I remember as a child being upstairs and hearing the second question: “Robert Lutjens, what did you do,” only then after silence to be followed with “where are you?” Neither question I wanted to answer!

This same steely focus of God on people was on full display in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus, broken and under extreme duress looked beyond the task of the cross and all that came with “it,” and focused on his relationship with the Father –“not my will, but your will be done”—and focused on his disciples. He craved Peter’s presence to be with him during his agony. And even when Peter failed him, his focus was less on what Peter didn’t do, but on Peter’s own person and well-being. As painful as his own temptation was, Jesus urged him to pray, “that you may not enter into temptation.”

And as we follow Jesus to the cross, and we hear him cry out in the midst of his anguish and suffering, we don’t hear him saying how much “it” hurts. We don’t hear him proclaiming his innocence—it’s others who are focused on it, even Pilate saying that he has done nothing to deserve death. We don’t hear him speak of the injustice that he who had no sin had become sin for those who were putting him to death, for us, and for the world. Only in his final moments does he cry out about his thirst and focus on his mission completed – “It is finished.” Instead he says, “Father forgive them,” “Woman behold your son; son behold your mother,” “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” And when he draws his last breath, he puts himself in the hands of the one he has always loved and trusted, even though moments earlier he had forsaken him instead of us as he bore our sin.

We could go on and see that the first words the resurrected Christ says to his eleven closest followers—the ones who abandoned him in his deepest need, who fled when things got tough, who denied him when confronted—were “peace be with you.” Immediately he reconciles them to himself, not focusing on their failures, but on them and the relationship he desires to have with them. And his next words? “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” As the Father has sent me on a mission to reconcile people with God, including you, I am sending you to do the same. To be my witnesses, to be my ambassadors, to bring my reconciliation with the world to their lives.

But being an ambassador of Jesus’ reconciliation means not only representing Jesus in his place and in his stead, but it calls for us to have the eyes of Jesus, the focus of Jesus, to see people as Jesus sees them, both yourself and others.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Before God, we are no longer regarded according to the flesh. Instead, He sees us through Jesus and his blood shed for us. In other words, if our trust is in Jesus, he doesn’t see all that we have done wrong, all the times we have failed to love, all the things we regret, and even all our sins of which we are unaware. Each one of those things, if they comprised a list of all our wrongs, it would not change what God sees in us in Jesus. He sees you as his beloved. And friends, that is also how he sees the one next to you, who is also in Jesus. That is how he sees your spouse. It’s how he sees your children. It’s how he sees your coworkers and classmates—and not just the ones you like, but the ones with whom you don’t get along.

But it can be hard to see the person through all the stuff, through what it is they did, and even more what it is in me. Instead, we build walls made up of our resentment, our hurt, our anger, our need for vindication or even vengeance. Sure there is a brick or two that the other person put in the wall. They’re the ones we see, but what we don’t see are all the ones we have built around them. And those bricks have not only kept that person from me but have also imprisoned me and keep me from them—and not only them, but also from God and the relationship He desires for me. We see the wall, we see it, but what we don’t see is the person behind it, for whom Jesus died. What Jesus’ forgiveness for us calls us to do, compels us to do is to get up from our comfortable perch and our self-righteous staring at the wall, and climb up and take a peak over the top and see the person. For on the other side of that wall is something far more beautiful than the cold, hard, rough bricks that we have built up. On the other side is a new creation made in the image of Christ. On the other side of the walls I make, is you.

Climbing over that wall is our personal mission, the mission of reconciliation, the mission of God.

18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

That message is not only to be reconciled to God (v. 20), but also to be reconciled with one another, for reconciliation with others opens our hearts and theirs to the fullness of God’s reconciliation and all the blessings of life and freedom from our self-made prisons that such forgiveness brings. This explains why Jesus says that reconciling with another is more important than even bringing your offering to Jesus. (Crazy thing for a pastor to say, but it is true. Reconciliation makes the heart right, and where the heart is right, the offerings will come. I can’t tell you what the impact on the church will be without your offering; but, I can tell you the impact on you without reconciliation in your life, and it’s not good).

So, how do we climb over those walls? First, we don’t climb alone. We climb with the Spirit of God. He is the one that gives us the nudge we need. He is the one who pushes us up and pulls us over. And the Spirit works through God’s Word and through others he puts in our paths, particularly those in the Community of Christ. That means we need to be present in both. Second, the climb is essentially carried out in three words: I forgive you. I forgive you. I know those words sound awfully formal, and weightier than what we’re comfortable with, but do you notice where the focus is—on you! Versus, saying it’s ok. Not only is the hurt caused not ok, but those two seemingly innocent words put the focus on “it.” And we might try to whitewash or cover up the wall and make “it” look better, but “it” is still a wall.

When we confess our sins to God, whether out loud, or in our hearts, and we take that silent time to make a list of what we have done and left undone. When God replies, he doesn’t recite what “it” is that we have confessed. He simply says, “I forgive you.” His focus is on you. You are what matters to him. So much so, that Jesus didn’t just climb over a wall, but climbed a hill, with a cross on his back and you on his mind. 9.You are what reconciliation is all about. You are the reconciled. And you are the reconciling, called by Jesus, as his ambassadors to tell others—I forgive you. You matter to God, and you matter to me—a lot more than whatever it is that has been between us. Amen