RECONCILIATION
Reconciliation is restoring a relationship that has soured. The timeless story of the prodigal son is really about reconciliation. The son separates from the father just as man’s sin has separated him from the loving relationship he was made to have with God. It does not take long for the prodigal son to recognize that life with his father is incomparable to one without, and so decides to return.
So he got up and went to his father.“ But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ (Luke15: 20, 21)
God’s love allows for forgiveness and reconciliation in this story. Paul explains the concept of reconciliation further.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sinfor us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)
Reconciliation is initiated by God’s love. This is a love that defies human comprehension or norms. It is a love that forgives and forgets. Yet reconciliation comes at a cost. In the story of the prodigal son, the father was willing to accept the loss of half of his estate. The cost of reconciliation for humanity is the judgment for sin, and it cost the life of Jesus- God who was made man. And because the price was paid, God is able to not count our sins against us and receive us back into a loving relationship with him, a state of abundance unfettered by material possessions or societal positions. Sinful as we are and unworthy to be his children, we nevertheless become his heirs, as we take on the righteousness of Christ.
Today we are also called to bear witness to this reconciliation as ambassadors of Christ. We declare to the world what Christ has done for us and what he can do for others, if they believe. We are able to demonstrate with our lives what it means to be a new creation, shedding the old way of life and living in newness, with the hope of eternity to come.
