Fourth Sunday in Lent
2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Pastor Gayle M. Pope

Reconciled in Christ

One of the rites of passage in life is getting your first checking account. And when you get your checking account, it’s important to learn how to accurately reconcile your check book.

I don’t remember when I got my first checking account or who taught me how to reconcile my records with my bank’s records, but somehow I learned to do that and, let me tell you, I’m one of those people who likes to get it exactly right.

If there is even a one-cent discrepancy between what my check register says and what my bank statement says, I will go back over everything and try to find it.

And when I get to the point where all the calculations are right, all the outstanding checks are considered, all the unrecorded debits and credits properly recorded and the number in my check register matches the number in the bank statement, I feel a sense of triumph. “Yes!” All is well. The ducks are in a row. Peace reigns.

It’s one thing to be so exacting when reconciling a checking account, but what happens if we apply that same ledger mentality to our relationships?

What if, in order for my friend or co-worker or family member and I to be reconciled with each other, I have to make sure that every good thing I do for her is balanced by a good thing she does for me? What if every thoughtless comment has to be offset by an equally sincere apology – every rude action by an equal act of atonement. Or what if every time a wrong is done to me, I have to do an equal wrong to the other so that, “now we’re even.”

That method of reconciliation between people doesn’t really work too well. Either we just give up and become estranged. Or we’re so focused on whether we’re “even” that there’s no life left in the relationship. Being “even” like that in a relationship brings no peace because we’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And yet, that IS how we operate a lot of times. “Well – he didn’t do thus-and-such for me yesterday, so I’m not going to do thus-and-such for him today.” That’s human nature, we might say, and we might be right; but, praise the Lord, that is not God’s nature.

As it is written in Psalm 130: “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you.”

The Apostle Paul wrote in our passage from second Corinthians this morning, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” And “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

This is a different kind of reconciliation than what we do with our checkbooks. This is reconciliation where God says, “There’s no way in heaven or on earth that you can possibly do enough good things, or make up for enough bad things to even up the account between you and me. You will ALWAYS be in the whole. So I’m giving you a DIFFERENT way to settle accounts with me. It’s the way of the cross.”

God is not saying, “Your sins don’t matter – forget about them – do whatever you want and it’s all OK between us.” God is saying, “Your sins DO matter. Your sin separates us. But since it is not in your power to set things straight between us, I will provide the reconciliation. All you have to do is accept it.”

As the Bible says in Romans 5:8, “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

And in Ephesians 2:4-5, “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).”

What a deal this is for us! We don’t have to be perfect to earn God’s favor – God favors us by covering us with the perfection of His Son like a mother covers a child. We need only receive the covering provided by the blood of Jesus by believing in its power to do what God says it does.

This is not just a mechanical or intellectual assent to a proposition. This is transformation! When we truly accept God’s reconciliation plan, we are changed! We are “in Christ” and when we are “in Christ” Paul says we are a new creation. We no longer regard each other from a human point of view – we see through God’s eyes. The ministry of Christ becomes OUR ministry.

Paul puts it like this: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” God has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us. We are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.”

What does that mean for us? How does that show in our lives?

First: If we are ambassadors for Christ – if we represent Christ to the world – we ought to be prepared to share the message of salvation in Christ to anyone God puts in our path who needs to hear it.

Second: If Christ forgives us while we are yet sinners – if God wipes our slate clean by grace – and if we are “in Christ” – must we not also be prepared to offer forgiveness and reconciliation based not on a “tit for tat” balance sheet, but freely and graciously, as God forgives us?

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” Jesus taught us to pray. In his sermon on the mount in Matthew’s gospel, Chapter 5, Jesus said, “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”

This is hard for us to do, from a human point of view. Our pride gets in the way. Our human sense of righteousness and balance wants an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

But by faith in Jesus, we receive power to do unto others as God has done unto us.

Colossians 3 says: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in hour hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.”

God has reconciled us to himself in Christ and calls us to bring that reconciliation into the world. Is there anything stopping you from doing that? Is anything stopping us as a congregation from doing that? If so, let us repent and ask God to help us, so that we may be the ambassadors God needs.