But you will be called the priests of the Lord;
you will be spoken of as ministers of our God.
Isaiah 61:6
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 men'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.
A few years ago, my children and I studied the Crusades of European Christians to the Middle East and the horror that ensued...wholesale slaughter of Muslims and Jews under the banner of Christ, called for by Church leaders. This year we studied the history of the Native Americans, learning about their forced removal from their lands to the desolate reservations...the promises made by our American government and then revoked time and again. In addition, I live in Charleston, South Carolina, a city of much beauty but also, of much historical ugliness. At one time there were four African slaves for every one white person. Here, much of the land was darkened by the blood, sweat and tears of men, women and children, forced into incredibly hard labor because of the color of their skin. The realization of what was done by my ancestors and by the leaders of my country, has grieved my children and myself.
"How do we respond to such deep, gaping, sometimes ancient wounds? The simple answer lies in the humility of Jesus expressed through His Body, the Church," (Healing the Wounds of the World by John Dawson).
It was 1993 and I was watching a video called The Hard Truth about the atrocities of abortion. Since Jr. High, I had always been outspokenly pro life. I knew the truth about abortion and it grieved me. But after watching this 9-minute video, I found myself suddenly, unexpectedly, on my face before God, wailing in grief over the sins of abortion, asking God to forgive "us."
Why "us?" I have never had an abortion? I have never encouraged a friend to have an abortion. I have, in fact, worked in three different crisis pregnancy centers, encouraging women not to have abortions. But at that moment, in light of the horrible truth of the mass slaughter of babies, something deep inside me identified with the sin...with the sin of the human race that I am a part of. The Holy Spirit allowed me to open myself to godly sorrow and confess before Him the sins of the land. This is what Christian reconciliation is all about.
"In responding to the broken heart of God, we need to identify with the sins of the nation in personal and corporate repentance. Even though Nehemiah was apparently a very righteous man and innocent of the specific sins that the nation of Israel had committed, when he prayed for the restoration of Israel he prayed as a member of the guilty nation, identifying with their sins, saying, "I and my father's house have sinned" (Nehemiah 1:6-7). Ezra went even further when he said, "Oh my God: I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens" (Ezra 9:6).
Both Ezra and Nehemiah were righteous men, but they so identified with the people that they were interceding for that they considered themselves guilty with them. You may be a righteous person who is not involved in any direct way with the vices present in your nation, but there is no temptation which is not common to humanity (1 Corinthians 10:13). We can all identify with the roots of any given sin, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23)," (Dawson).
Today we live in a wounded world. Many of those wounds have strong, historical roots. These wounds often prevent the Gospel of Christ from healing a person's heart. As Christians, we can take two approaches to this problem. We can look at a situation, like abortion or the Crusades, or the Native American land grab or the forced slavery of Africans and say to ourselves, "I didn't do this." "I had nothing to do with it." If we take this stand, nothing will ever change.
Or we can take another approach. An approach that I was privileged to be part of after watching The Hard Truth. We can seek forgiveness for ancestral sins. While we honor our righteous ancestors (in my case through remembering and teaching ourselves and our children about the history of America...the wonderful things done by this country), honesty dictates that we embrace both the grandeur and the guilt.
"Have you ever attempted reconciliation (with someone) while the painful memories still tormented you? There will be no reconciliation with anybody until we bring our broken hearts to Jesus first. Healing begins when we honestly confront the past. Before we can even contemplate forgiveness, we need to face what really happened and bring it to the foot of the cross," (Dawson). That is what Christian-led reconciliation is. That is what it means to be the "priesthood of Christ."
"God does not put guilt on the intercessor. We are not individually guilty for what our group did or our (nation) did, but He is waiting for the 'royal priesthood,' which is the redeemed in Christ, to openly confess the truth of the matter before Him and before people, just as the ancient Hebrew priests once did over the sins of Israel.
You see, it is very difficult to forgive if you have never heard an open acknowledgment of the injustices that wounded you or your people. On the other hand, such grace for forgiveness is released when we are asked for forgiveness by those who identify themselves in some way with the identity of those who contributed to our suffering," (Dawson).
So what does reconciliation on the part of the Christian Church look like? I will share one woman's story tomorrow.
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