Reconciliation
Ash Wednesday
Text: 2 Cor. 5:20b—6:10; Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The church in Corinth was a mess. Yes, they had money—lots of it. Yes, they were located in one of the most important cities in that part of the world. And yes, they had everything that came with that: members who belonged to the elite classes of society, centers of art and education and philosophy. But they were a mess. The congregation had divided itself behind several different leaders, all of whom were impressive in their own right: either wealthy or powerful or intelligent or well-spoken. They were divided over questions of marriage and remarriage, over worship practices, over doctrinal questions. There were scandals—ones that would shock us today even in our shameless age—that forced everyone to pick a side. They were fractured, separated from each other.
But that was not all. The division that existed there was not only between the Corinthians themselves. It was also between them and God. The problems were much more dire than partisanship and factions and who was better than whom. The problem wasn’t just with people; the problem was with God. Every single division in Corinth, whether it was about what was happening in the worship services, or the personal matters going on in their homes, or the splits that happened because some preferred one leader over others—all of them had their roots in what God had said was good or bad, healthy or harmful, belonging to the light or born out of darkness.
Things are never as clean and disentangled as we tend to think they are. Life is never as compartmentalized as we pretend, particular where spiritual matters are concerned. Things in our everyday life are never disconnected from our eternal walk with the Lord. The way we treat others is entirely bound up in our relationship to God. Jesus laid it out for us tonight when He said, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” There it is—what’s done before humans is woven together with our life before God. Our Lord even breaks it down into specifics. Our giving to the needy, something done for people, has a dimension that involves God; so we are not to trumpet our charitable giving, lest that be the only reward we see, because our Father who sees in secret is not willing to reward something done simply to boost our worldly status. We are not to pray in a way to be praised by other mortals, for then our Father in heaven, to whom we should be focusing all attention in prayer, will not see it as a conversation with Him; it’s done for the benefit of human bystanders. When we turn our eye inward and fast, thinking on what God has given so graciously, the way in which He sees it is bound up with the way we make it visible for humans to see as well.
We see it with every Commandment. The ones that involve our neighbor don’t stop with just our neighbor—God has something to say about it as well. The way we treat others is directly connected to what we believe about God. And those Commandments that define our walk with God also have to do with our neighbor: the way we speak to them, the language of blessing or cursing we use, the prayers we offer on their behalf, our willingness to sit alongside them to hear the Word of God in the ways it comes to us as a congregation.
Division, between us and God and us with other humans, has been the problem ever since sin first entered this world. It could even be seen as the root of all our problems. What is sin but being cut off from God and the neighbor? Adam and Eve were divided in the Garden of Eden when they first fell at the tempter’s half-truths. Adam blamed Eve for his sin; the first division. Even the tempter’s name, the devil, simply means “accuser”; or, more literally, “the one who casts apart”, the one who divides.
And what is the result of that division by sin? It’s easy enough to see effects of the separation between humans—war, violence, abuse, lies, stealing, exploitation, demonization of the other. These are all things that happen when others are held at arm’s length, or further, not seeing them as fellow creations of God, no matter how similar or different they are.
But even worse is what happens when we’re divided from the Lord who made us. Sin is no small matter here. It’s separation from the one source of life. Sin is the blade that cuts our tie to the God who gives life, the only One who can give life. So we sin and we feel the effects of that. Those antilife things: disease, pain, corruption, death—they all grow out of sin. St. Paul said it in the most stark way when he summed it up: “The wages of sin is death.” And you have heard it spoken to you, as ashes, all that’s left after destruction and corruption have had their way, have been placed on your head and you heard those words that reminded you of the result of your separation from the Lord of life: Dust you are and to dust you shall return.
What do we do then? If the problem is separation from God, then the solution must be reconnection to Him. If the harm we do against each other is caused by our divisions, then the beginning of healing must be reconciliation. And that is precisely what St. Paul has told us this evening. “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Reconciliation is a beautiful word that doesn’t get much use in our everyday world. Reconciliation is the reunion of those who have been divided by more than just distance or time. It’s the bringing back together of those who were separated by hostility. It’s an exchanging of hostility for a friendly relationship. It’s the removal of what was dividing and building a bridge over the gap of all that hurt, all that damage, all that was caused by the division.
That is what this season in the Church year is for. Lent is the time for reconciliation. Now is the favorable time. Now is the day of salvation. And it is so, not because of what we’re doing, not because we went through the right motions; and certainly not because we proved it was all someone else’s fault. We are reconciled—to God and one another—because we are under the cross.
It’s under the cross that the divide between us and God is bridged. We wouldn’t, we couldn’t come up to Him. We refused to lay down those sins—the small, petty ones we thought weren’t hurting us or anyone, and the big ones that we know are damaging but have managed to bury—we refused, and so God came the full way down to us. He was born of a virgin. He shared our human nature. He was tempted as we are, and yet overcame it, refusing to be sidetracked from His mission for us or separated from His Father. He died in our place so that the old division, the old sins, the old hostility we have toward God and other people would be killed in His crucified flesh and buried in the stone tomb. With the solid wooden beams of the cross He bridged the gap between heaven and earth so that God would be reconciled to us and we to God; so that we would be forgiven and restored to a good and holy standing before Him, entirely because of what Jesus has done for us.
And as we have been forgiven, so we forgive. The reconciliation we receive from God overflows from us to others. We don’t hold it over their head as bait. We don’t make them grovel for it. We don’t demand that they come to us and kiss the ring. For our God has not done this. He’s given it only for Jesus’ sake, and so we do too. We pray “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” and our Father who sees in secret hears our prayer and rewards it. He grants reconciliation.
This season we are gathered under the cross of Jesus. We will be reconciled to God and one another. It will be reflected in what we hear on these coming Wednesday evenings about those who were present at Jesus’ cross that Good Friday afternoon while He bridged the gap between heaven and earth. It will be reflected in what we do this season—giving charitably, checking in on our fellow believers, providing what they need for their bodies and speaking words of healing for their souls.
No matter who you are, who your friends or enemies are, no matter what you’ve done or where you’ve been, who’s hurt you and who you’ve hurt, there is a place for you under Jesus’ cross. This is where all that is broken is made whole, all that is defiled is made holy, all that is divided is reconciled. Come to the cross, come to the Word of God read and preached, come to the rail where Jesus’ body and blood is given and shed for the forgiveness of your sin, and be reconciled. All is covered by Jesus’ sacrifice. Look to Him this Lent and be restored. In the name of Jesus, who brings us back to God. Amen.
