Breaking Down Walls of Conflict
by Lenn Zeller, Director of Conference Care
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. (2 Corinthians 5:17–19)
Our 6th Guiding Value in the CCCC is “A Culture of Peacemaking and Reconciliation.” Nowhere is this expressed more clearly than in 2 Corinthians 5. There Paul talks about how we have been reconciled to God in Christ. Because of our rebellion and sin, we were at one time aliens, foreigners, enemies of God and out of fellowship with Him. But Jesus came to reconcile us to God through His finished work on the cross. All of our sins have been paid for and God no longer holds them against us, because we have trusted Christ as our Savior. Praise God for this Good News! The reason Jesus came to earth was to offer peace with God to those who were once His enemies. By grace, through faith, this is realized.
And once we have been reconciled to God, He sends us as His ambassadors into the world to declare this Gospel of hope, peace and reunion to the world. To this day, Christ and His church are involved in the ministry of reconciliation, bringing people back together again, and back to God. That is who we are — ministers of reconciliation. It’s not always easy. Not everyone will respond positively to this Gospel. But we are motivated by the love of God in Christ, and the commission that He has given to us, and we persevere.
Peacemaking is a central element of who we are as Christians. We are called to proclaim the Gospel of peace with God through Christ. And we are exhorted to live in peace with one another as a result of and a testimony to that salvation we have been so kindly given. To the extent that we are willing to forgive one another, lovingly work out our differences and live in unity within the church, we are showing forth the love that God has graciously given to us.
There were two unmarried sisters who had such a bitter fight that they stopped speaking to each other. Unable or unwilling to leave their small home, they continued to use the same rooms and sleep in the same bedroom. A chalk line divided the sleeping area into two halves. The chalk divided other rooms as well so that both sisters could come and go and get her own meals without trespassing on their sister’s space. For years, they coexisted in grinding silence. Neither was willing to take the first step to reconciliation.
Then one night, a sister got up to go to the bathroom and fell, breaking her hip. The other sister, awakened by the fall and the scream of pain, jumped out of bed, crossed the chalk line and came to her sister’s side. She gently held her foe of the past few years in her arms until the paramedics came and carried her to the hospital.
Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall told this story and added these words at the end: “The legal system can force open doors, and sometimes knock down walls, but it cannot build bridges.” That is the job of Christ and the Church.
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shared by Davon Huss, Pleasant Ridge Church Of Christ, July 2009
