May 4, 2008

"Reconciled"

Psalm 87, Colossians 1: 15- 23

Several stories came to my mind as I thought about the truths that the Lord was revealing in the scriptures we just read.  One was a story my mom told me some years ago when she living in the Chicago area.  It was about a couple of her neighbors.  She came one day to find them carefully combing through the bushes in front of their home.  They both had rather anxious expressions.  Clearly they were looking for something.

"What did you lose?" mom said. 

"St. Christopher," the woman replied

"St. Christopher?"

She explained, "My mom gave me a statue of St. Christopher to keep in our home to bring us good luck.  One time my husband got mad and threw it out the window.  Ever since then, things have been going wrong-one bad thing after another.   We figure God is angry with us for throwing out St. Christopher. And so are trying to find him again.

In their book Living With Cancer William Fintel and Gerald McDermott tell the story of Floyd, whose three year old son Jimmy was diagnosed with leukemia.  Floyd was struggling with the why question.

 "If God is all good and all powerful, why would he permit a terrible disease like cancer." 

Floyd's neighbor John came over one evening to comfort him.  Neither man had been much of a churchgoer.  But, ever since Floyd had divorced his wife, he was starting to attend more regularly.  And then Jimmy got cancer.

In the course the conversation, John finally concluded,

"Floyd, I'm probably not the right person to talk to.  I really know what to think about God.  "Sometimes, I think that bad things are happening to me because God is punishing me for not going to church.  Other times I don't.  So, who knows?  Maybe you've sinned and this is your punishment."

When the terrorist crashed those planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, some popular preachers pointed to the sins our nation and confidently proclaimed that God was sending his judgment on us.  Strangely, the more those on right blamed the immorality of our secular society and those on the left the sin of racism, the more their sins of immorality and prejudice became evident.  It would seem that if we as Christians want to start cleaning up our country, we better begin with cleaning up ourselves. 

The one thread that ties these stories together is the fear of God's judgment.  Sometimes when problems and tragedy strikes, we like Job's friends immediately blame ourselves or more often others.  We must have something wrong to make God angry.  He must be punishing us.

Now, certainly God is a God who punishes sin. And the Bible does give many examples of God's punishing a people's sin by sending disaster to them.  But, we must never forget that until Jesus comes back God does not intend punishment and judgment to be the end of the story.  God's Word comes to us today to tell us that his purpose for us is not punishment and judgment, but reconciliation.

In our scripture Paul writes about Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah.  Especially look at verse 19- 20,

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Reconciliation is big term.  It simply means "to make things right again."  When a married couple who is having trouble reconciles, it means that they have worked out the issues that were causing problems in their marriage and that their relationship is restored.

God desires a restored relationship.  That is the truth that is hidden in the first two verses of our scripture,

He has set his foundation on the holy mountain;

   the LORD loves the gates of Zion

 more than all the dwellings of Jacob

Why did the Lord love Zion so much.  Zion was the hill where the temple was. And the temple was where God and his people were reconciled.

It was at the temple that they offered their sacrifices to God to atone for their sins.  It was in the most holy place in the temple-the holy of holies-where there was a special box called the Ark of the Covenant.  Once a year the priest would come in and stand before the Ark of the Covenant and sprinkle blood on the mercy seat to atone for the people's sins.  This was done to reconcile the people to God, so that their relationship with him could continue.

Now, for us as Christian, where is our Zion?  Where is our temple mount, where our relationship with God is restored?  Verse 20 answers that question very clearly

by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Our Zion is the cross of Jesus Christ.  It is at the cross where Jesus reconciled us to God. 

So, as Christians we don't trust in statues or in how many time we go to church, or even in how moral a life we have led.  We find our peace in the cross of Jesus Christ.

To be born in Zion is to find you peace on Mount Zion; it is to find your peace in the one to whom the sacrifices on Mt. Zion were a picture.  It is to find your peace in cross of Jesus Christ.  It is to have a relationship with God and to live his presence.

Psalm 87 ends with the words,

All my fountains are in you.

You have to read this in the context of someone who lived near dry deserts, where water meant the difference between life and death.  In the Bible, water often symbolizes the presence of God, specifically the presence of God the Holy Spirit.  In Psalm 42, the Psalmist cries out,

As the deer pants for streams of water,

    so my soul pants for you, O God.

²    My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

    When can I go and meet with God?

³    My tears have been my food

    day and night,

    while men say to me all day long,

    "Where is your God?"

The Psalmists and the prophets often spoke of God's presence coming out from Zion or Jerusalem, the city where Mt. Zion was.  And when God's people know that God with them, the can endure almost anything.   Turn with me to Psalm 46,

¹    God is our refuge and strength,

    an ever-present help in trouble.

²    Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

³    though its waters roar and foam

    and the mountains quake with their surging.

⁴    There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

    the holy place where the Most High dwells.

⁵    God is within her, she will not fall;

    God will help her at break of day.

⁶    Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

    he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

⁷    The LORD Almighty is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

So, in this world where tragedy strikes so quickly, we can know that God is with us if we trust in what Jesus did for us on the cross.  As Romans 8:31,

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

I wonder if mom's neighbor would have truly trusted in the cross whether they would have been so concerned about St. Christopher, or Floyd and John about their church attendance.  We belong to God, because of the cross of Jesus Christ.  If God is for us who can be against us?

But according to Psalm 87, who are those who receive this promise?  Who are those "born in Zion?"

Verses 4-  6,

I will record Rahab^£ and Babylon

among those who acknowledge me-

 Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush^£-

    and will say, ‘This^£ one was born in Zion.'"

⁵    Indeed, of Zion it will be said,

    "This one and that one were born in her,

    and the Most High himself will establish her."

⁶    The LORD will write in the register of the peoples:

    "This one was born in Zion."

Notice who the people are who were born in Zion and who acknowledged or as some other translations put it "knew" God.  Who were they?

First we see the name Rahab.  Now Rahab is not the Rahab of Jericho, who was saved because she hid the spies.  Rehab can be used in a figurative sense to mean "the arrogant" or the "proud."  Isaiah 30: 7 specifically uses this word to describe Egypt, Israel's powerful arrogant oppressor.  That fits well with Babylon, the other nation who oppressed God's people and held them captive.  Notice also the other nations: Philistia-the Philistines were among the most stubborn enemies of Israel; Tyre and Cush (or Ethiopia), while at times friendly, they could also be enemies.  Certainly they were enemies of God.  For, it was from nations such as these that God's people were tempted to worship idols.

So, this Psalm is predicting that these enemies of God would one day know him and have a relationship to him, that, in the words of the Psalm, they would be born in Zion.  And when would that happen?  Paul gives us the answer in what he wrote to the Colossians,

²¹Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of^£ your evil behavior. ²²But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation-

Jesus by his death and resurrection reconciled those peoples who were once alienated from God and his enemies, and the enemies of his people.  Now they could be his friends.  Indeed, they could be his sons and daughters.

As I think of that verse it reminds me of another saint. His name was Winfred, We know him better as St. Boniface.  He was 8^th century missionary to the German, Dutch, and Frisian people.  How many here this morning fit into that category?   I certainly do.  I'm Dutch and Frisian.  Boniface is to us what St. Patrick is to Irish people:  A wonderful saint, who brought us the gospel.  But, do you know what my Frisian ancestors did Boniface?

A band of my ancestors pretended that they wanted to make a commitment to Jesus.  But, instead they came armed with their battle clubs and they clubbed Boniface to death along with 52 other Christians who were with him  But, God was patient with them.  Shortly thereafter my ancestors believed the gospel were reconciled to God.  And God made sons and daughters out of his enemies.

Before he ascended to heaven Jesus said to the eleven,

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in^£ the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

Make disciples of all nations.  Paul was carrying that command of Jesus by bringing the message of reconciliation to those who were formerly alienated from God and enemies.  So were Patrick and Boniface.  And that work goes on today

In his book Hidden in Plain Sight, author and pastor Mark Buchanan writes about a woman named Regine. Originally from Rwanda, Regine came to Christ while reading her sister's Bible during the genocide that ravaged her country. When she fled to Canada for refuge, she met her husband, Gordon. They decided to return to Rwanda to show the love of Christ to the people who had once been her enemies. Regine told Mark Buchanan this story of agape love:

A woman's only son was killed. She was consumed with grief and hate and bitterness. "God," she prayed, "reveal my son's killer."

One night she dreamed she was going to heaven. But there was a complication: in order to get to heaven she had to pass through a certain house. She had to walk down the street, enter the house through the front door, go through its rooms, up the stairs, and exit through the back door.

She asked God whose house this was.

"It's the house," he told her, "of your son's killer."

The road to heaven passed through the house of her enemy.

Two nights later, there was a knock at her door. She opened it, and there stood a young man. He was about her son's age.

"Yes?"

He hesitated. Then he said, "I am the one who killed your son. Since that day, I have had no life. No peace. So here I am. I am placing my life in your hands. Kill me. I am dead already. Throw me in jail. I am in prison already. Torture me. I am in torment already. Do with me as you wish."

The woman had prayed for this day. Now it had arrived, and she didn't know what to do. She found, to her own surprise, that she did not want to kill him. Or throw him in jail. Or torture him. In that moment of reckoning, she found she only wanted one thing: a son.

"I ask this of you. Come into my home and live with me. Eat the food I would have prepared for my son. Wear the clothes I would have made for my son. Become the son I lost."

And so he did.

That work of reconciliation goes on wherever God's people do what God himself has done, making sons and daughters out of bitter enemies, feeding and clothing them, blazing a trail to heaven straight through their houses.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation

Brother or sister, is there a neighbor, a family member, an enemy in your life who needs to know the power of God's reconciliation?  If so, what are doing about it?  The same God who reconciled us calls us to bring that peace to others.

Amen.