Tonight I invite you to wear a new cross, the Cross of
Reconciliation – the Cross of Peace. You would think that everyone wants
peace. Isn’t that everyone’s wish. Not exactly. We think about peace, but
making peace is something else.
Peace does not come easy. God’s peace with mankind was
hard won for us on the cross with nails and pain and blood and finally
death. Peace between individuals does not come easy either. It is painful
to confess your sins to the person you wronged, and it is painful to have
to give up your anger to forgive. It is painful to see a good friendship
become broken and die. It is extremely difficult to find your way back
together once you have said too much and done too much that is wrong…..I
said extremely difficult, but immeasurably rewarding….and definitely the
right thing to do. It is worth the struggle to rekindle a friendship or to
bridge the gap that has grown between you and another person. Somehow the
new love becomes more meaningful, the new bond is stronger. You also are
more determined to keep this love alive. But it does not come easy.
Psalm 34:14 urges us to "seek peace and pursue it." Peace
will not come to you, indeed we are prone to create conflict and division
rather than be at peace. That is music to Satan’s ears. He enjoys seeing
people in conflict, especially brothers and sisters of Christ. But God is
One who will seek peace. God pursued peace between himself and us by
sending his Son, Jesus Christ. It was God who took the initiative, not us.
In Psalm 34 he urges those who know his peace to be the first to risk
seeking peace with others.
Saint Paul writes in Ephesians 2, "But now in Christ Jesus
you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of
Christ. For he himself is our peace who has made Jew and Gentile
one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility….and in
this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by
which he put to death their hostility."
Did you hear that? However high we build this dividing
wall of hostility, the cross of Christ can smash it. Sometimes it takes
just a few moments, but more often it takes years to build stone by stone
a wall of hostility, but Christ can bring it all down with his cross. The
cross of reconciliation. Can you think of any dividing walls that need
smashing? Hatred, hostile action, angry words, prejudice, judgmental
attitudes, and on and on. The cross can smash those walls, and then
through the cross God can build new friendships with new understandings.
Read 2 Corinthians 5:16-19
The old way of looking at people was the way people once
saw Christ and once regarded Christ. He was seen as a threat to their ego
and their way of life. They wanted to separate themselves from Christ.
More accurately they wanted to separate Christ from them….they ultimate
separation for him….they wanted him dead.
But those who are "in Christ" (Paul’s signature
expression) – who believe in Christ and live in him…they would see both
Christ and others in an entirely new way, not as threats but as potential
friends. God would work in his people the power of Christ’s cross – the
Cross of Reconciliation. He people would become peacemakers not friendship
breakers…and it would be all God’s doing.
Read all of 2 Corinthians 5:14 to 21 again.
Do we need this? Oh yes!
It is much more than friendship that is lost when people
are angry with each other. The emotional strain tears up our bodies and
does havoc with our well being. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom, and
it means "well being." Lack of this and there is no well being. The
physical strain drains our effectiveness to work or play.
Even our worship life is affected. Jesus was talking to
his Disciples in Matthew 5 about the destructive nature of tearing people
down with words. When destructive words have been spoken, Jesus told them
what to do. "If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember
that your brother has something against you, leave your gift at the altar,
but go first and be reconciled to your brother – then come and offer your
gift." By using the Cross of Reconciliation your worship is now acceptable
to God. In the same way Christ’s Reconciling death on the cross has made
you acceptable to God.
Often people let even little things get between them, but
God has given us something that will not allow that to happen….if we would
be bold to use it. It is the cross of Christ, the Reconciling Cross of
Christ. It is Christ himself.
All this from a cross? All this from THE Cross!
There on the cross sinful men ganged up on Jesus to nail
him to the cross motivated by all their anger and hatred and hostility,
but God used the very same cross to bring peace and reconciliation between
God and men…between himself and you.
Those who trust in Christ the crucified find a peace they
cannot explain and a peace that the world cannot give. This peace is
yours, and his power to bring peace is still your today.
In Jesus name, Amen.
