Reconciliation: The Language of the Cross



By David C. Brand - Posted at The Christian Observer:
Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened it to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. . . . and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek.
-John 19:19, 20b
. . . so from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 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.
-2 Corinthians 5:16-20-

We hardly need to open the pages of the Bible to learn of the world’s desperate need for reconciliation. We find it portrayed in audio and visual messaging with boundless graphics. Either our world is on the verge of self-destruction, or (to recall an expression of Evangelist Billy Graham) it is about to come to Christ by process of elimination! Indeed, there is not much wiggle room between these alternatives. In the Battle of Lake Erie, American naval commander Oliver Hazard Perry, announced, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”[1] But presently we can hardly agree as to who the enemy is–or who it is that poses the greatest threat to society–or (thankfully) even the color of his (her) skin? Is it a maniacal individual, a duly elected leader, or the media itself? The truth just may be that we have engaged the enemy and they are us!

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