Reconciliation – Scribbling Theology

Through him God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself
things on earth and things in heaven
making peace through the blood of his cross.

Not some things.
Not only the worthy things.
All things.

The hidden fracture in the world
the quiet estrangement in the human heart
the long ache of history
the violence we inherit and the wounds we carry
none of it lies outside the reach of Christ.

The cross is not a narrow doorway for a few
but the deep center where everything broken is gathered.

Here hostility is unmade.
Here distance is crossed.
Here even what resists love is slowly surrounded by it.

The peace of Christ is not fragile agreement
but a steady, patient restoring
like roots pressing through hard soil
like light finding its way into a closed room.

And so reconciliation is not only a doctrine to believe
but a reality to inhabit.

We learn to live as those already being gathered
already being healed
already being brought home.

The cross stands at the center of all things
not as a sign of defeat
but as the quiet place where the world is being made whole.

Go in awe

Not awe at a distance, or awe in that of a spectacle, but real awe that comes
when the everlasting God draws near to share our dustiness.

Go in awe

of the real Jesus Christ
not an idea to be managed
or a symbol to be admired,
but God in flesh,
breathing our air,
walking our ground,
carrying our humanity.

The God through whom all things were made
did not stand outside the world and call it back.
He stepped into it.
Into time.
Into history.
Into skin and bone, hunger and rest.

This is how God chose to love.
Not from above,
but from within.

God did not heal humanity
by replacing it.
He healed it
by joining Himself to it.
By binding divine life
to human life so closely
that nothing human is left untouched,
and nothing broken is left outside His care.

Go in awe

remembering
that the first word of this good news
was spoken in the dark,
to the watchful and the waiting.
Glory opened the night
not in halls of power
but in open fields.
Peace was announced
not as control,
but as presence.

This is the peace that mends what power cannot.
The peace that gathers what has been scattered.
The peace that restores the world
by healing it from the inside.

In Jesus,
God has said yes
to the earth,
yes to flesh,
yes to humanity,
and yes to the long work
of making all things new.

Nothing is abandoned.
No place is empty of God.
No human life exists
outside the reach of His nearness.

Go in awe

as people shaped by this good news.
Let it steady your fear,
soften your judgement,
and widen your mercy.

Go bearing witness
not by force,
but by faithfulness.
Not by escape,
but by presence.
Not by standing above the world,
but by standing within it.

And may the God
who came to be with us
remain with you,
among you, in you
and ahead of you,
until heaven and earth are gathered as one,
and all things are restored
in Him.

Amen.

Tag: Reconciliation

The Wide Work of Christ

Benediction: Go in Awe