Lent 4
Devotional
Water From the Rock
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle C
Object:
So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us ...
-- 2 Corinthians 5:20
Our lives begin with the experience of forgiveness. God takes the initiative to offer us forgiveness before we have done anything to deserve it. Yet forgiveness comes with a price. We who are made a new creation in Christ are given the responsibility of being ambassadors of that reconciliation for the world. Like God's treatment of us, we are not to count people's sins as some debt that must be repaid. This is a dramatic step forward from the assumption that forgiveness is offered only after someone has demonstrated repentance and done penance.
In recent years there has been much debate in our society as to whether a person is sufficiently remorseful to deserve the forgiveness of society. Politicians and religious figures who have been publicly exposed have been central to this debate. To offer forgiveness only after a person has demonstrated remorse is a very human way of doing things, but "we regard no one from a human point of view." By taking the initiative to offer forgiveness, we allow God to shine through us. There will always be sin in the church and the world, and believers and nonbelievers will be tempted to judge others harshly. Jesus himself was subject to the judgmentalism of his peers. "He made him to be sin who knew no sin."
It was "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them." The difficult challenge for Christians is to move beyond the world's simplistic capacity to judge the wrongs of others and to become ambassadors of God's amazing grace. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
-- 2 Corinthians 5:20
Our lives begin with the experience of forgiveness. God takes the initiative to offer us forgiveness before we have done anything to deserve it. Yet forgiveness comes with a price. We who are made a new creation in Christ are given the responsibility of being ambassadors of that reconciliation for the world. Like God's treatment of us, we are not to count people's sins as some debt that must be repaid. This is a dramatic step forward from the assumption that forgiveness is offered only after someone has demonstrated repentance and done penance.
In recent years there has been much debate in our society as to whether a person is sufficiently remorseful to deserve the forgiveness of society. Politicians and religious figures who have been publicly exposed have been central to this debate. To offer forgiveness only after a person has demonstrated remorse is a very human way of doing things, but "we regard no one from a human point of view." By taking the initiative to offer forgiveness, we allow God to shine through us. There will always be sin in the church and the world, and believers and nonbelievers will be tempted to judge others harshly. Jesus himself was subject to the judgmentalism of his peers. "He made him to be sin who knew no sin."
It was "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them." The difficult challenge for Christians is to move beyond the world's simplistic capacity to judge the wrongs of others and to become ambassadors of God's amazing grace. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
