Reconciliation Through The Cross

Alba 2-19-2023

RECONCILIATION THROUGH THE CROSS

Ephesians 2:14-18

A minister and his wife were going to give a mid-morning garden party. They invited everyone with engraved invitations.

The back yard of the parsonage was manicured, tables decorated the lawn, the clematis vine and rose bushes elegantly bloomed their floral splendor! This was going to be THE EVENT of the year.

The night before the party the minister discovered (to his horror) that one lady, a charter member, and the resident matriarch of the church, had been left off the invitation list.

The minister immediately called the lady, whose name I'm told was Mrs. Snoot. “I’m sorry, it was a terrible oversight,” he pleaded, “Won’t you please come to the garden party anyway?” Mrs. Snoot replied, “It’s too late, Preacher….I’ve already prayed for rain!”

Oh, it only takes little things to cause hostilities between people. And once started, it is difficult for them to reconcile. Even little things can cause whole nations to be at war. It doesn't take much.

It is said that World War I started with the shot heard 'round the world when in 1914 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated.

World War II came a fairly short time later. On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain received a joyful homecoming after signing a peace pact with Nazi Germany. Chamberlain proudly declared “Peace for Our Time”.

Less than a year after that agreement, Hitler's invasion of Poland began World War II, and England declared war on Germany. Chamberlain was forced to resign eight months later.

Nations war with other nations and history records the deadly results. Reconciliation is hard to achieve.

Hostility is not limited to country against country. In our country we have repeated charges of racism when things go badly.

One would think that after a civil war was fought almost 170 years ago which resulted in the end of slavery, and the signing of the civil rights act of 1965, that the charge of racism would die.

But peace between various groups of people is difficult when they are being taught that our culture makes some to be victims and others to be oppressors. Such teaching causes more division than peace. More strife than reconciliation.

But then there is the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews. It has gone on since the time of Abraham. Did you know that Noah's son, Shem, was still alive when his great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson Abraham came on the scene?

The Jews are sons of Shem. So how about the Arab/Muslim nations? Did they not come from Ishmael, a son of Abraham, all descendants of the same Shem? Why can't we all get along!

Thankfully the Trump administration was able to make some headway in what is called the Abraham Accords, which normalized diplomatic relations among Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and, potentially, Sudan.

The Declaration at the beginning of that agreement states the following: “We, the undersigned, recognize the importance of maintaining and strengthening peace in the Middle East and around the world based on mutual understanding and coexistence, as well as respect for human dignity and freedom, including religious freedom.

“We encourage efforts to promote interfaith and intercultural dialogue to advance a culture of peace among the three Abrahamic religions and all humanity.

“We believe that the best way to address challenges is through cooperation and dialogue and that developing friendly relations among States advances the interests of lasting peace in the Middle East and around the world.”

The report is that so far progress in developing relations has achieved mixed results. That was also true of the early church. The gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ was open to all, Jews and Gentiles alike. The past animosity between these two groups had been great.

So the apostle Paul provides the churches with teaching in Ephesians chapter two that will help those Christians to get past their previous divisive behavior. Let's read Ephesians 2:14-18.

“14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, 15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, 16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. 17 And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. 18 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”

Paul is talking about the ending of the great conflict between the Jew and the Gentile Christians of his day. He says the first thing Jesus did was to break down the “middle wall of separation”, also called the "dividing wall of hostility."