Reconciliation
A reflection for Ash Wednesday
I have to admit that Ash Wednesday is kind of a strange service. It is very different than what we typically do during worship on Sunday mornings. It is a time when we take ashes and oil and smear them in the shape of the cross on your forehead. We call you to “repent and believe in the Gospel.” We remind you of those words from the very beginning in the book of Genesis, “you are from the dust and to the dust you shall return.” It is a solemn service where we highlight our mortality – we remember that life is fragile. It can be gone – taken from us – without a moment’s notice.
On this day, we place a big emphasis on “Being Human.” We lean fully into our humanness. We accept our human condition, and we acknowledge that life is temporary. There is no cure for being human. No amount of hydration, anti-aging cream, or exercise can reverse our mortality. We try our best to take charge, to plan ahead, to control the direction of our lives. But there is so much that is out of our control. And on Ash Wednesday, we are confronted with our limitations and vulnerabilities.
But the good news is that Jesus knows what it’s like to be human, and Jesus knows all about our humanity. As Psalm 103 says, “God knows how we’re made, God remembers we’re just dust” Psalm 103:14 (CEB). And this is where Jesus meets us. He meets us in our brokenness and in our humanness. He meets us in our shortcomings and in our failures. Jesus knows that we can’t do it all on our own. And so… Jesus came among us… so that we might receive God’s love, grace, and mercy into our lives.
When the sign of the cross is traced upon our foreheads, we are receiving a sign of God’s love. And this sign comes from a God who sees us, knows us, accepts us, and loves us – even in the midst of our brokenness and pain. It is a sign that ultimately points us to salvation, redemption, and reconciliation that comes from the very God who formed us out of the dust.
This is exactly what the Apostle Paul talks about in his Second Letter to the Corinthians. Paul points us to a new way of being that moves us toward that hard and difficult work of reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (NRSVUE): 16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Amen.
……………………………………………
Since Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, things have started to unravel. The church is in turmoil, relationships are strained, and the early excitement of their faith has given way to real-life struggles. The honeymoon phase is over, and the growing pains of a staying committed—both to Christ and to one another—is becoming more challenging. So, in this second letter to the Corinthians, Paul is pleading with the Church to seek peace, to mend what is broken, and to realign their hearts with Christ.
Over and over again, the Apostle Paul uses this word, “Reconciliation.” …Reconciliation… This is the hard work of making peace with someone who has hurt you – or someone that you have hurt. It is the restoration – the mending – of a broken relationship. Coming back to a place of peace – a place of harmony.
This is what the Christian faith is all about. It’s all about reconciliation. Think about it. God became flesh. Jesus healed, taught, lived, died, gave up his life, and rose again… so that we might be reconciled. So that we might be reconciled to God. So that we might be reconciled to one another. Jesus came, in the flesh, to deal with our humanness, our brokenness, our sin, in order to bring us back to where we need to be, in order to bring us back into right relationship with God. That is the central message to the Christian faith – we are saved because God longs to have a relationship with us.
We all know the effects sin has in our personal lives, our relationships with others, and our relationship with God. Our sin does real damage and can eat away at us and others until we are left with shame, and fear, and guilt.
But God’s grace invites us to find restoration from the shame, fear, and guilt that we might be experiencing and to be in right relationship with God and our neighbors. And ultimately, we are called to find reconciliation with God and with each other.
And this is the holy work that God calls us to do as the church. It’s fundamental to who we are. Now… We don’t always get it right. And it’s probably the hardest thing that we do. And yet, it is something that is so desperately needed in our world today.
We are surrounded by examples of broken relationships. You don’t have to look far to see it—families divided by old wounds, siblings that haven’t talked in years, friendships that have ended, relationships that have unraveled. Facebook accounts that have been blocked. Phone calls that are ignored. We see communities that have been torn apart. Churches that have split. We see rifts among nations. We see it in our politics. We see it on the news. Everywhere we look we see examples of division… but we don’t always see a lot of reconciliation.
Years ago, I was offering a morning devotion at an assisted living center. This is something I did about once a month. And after I finished my short devotion, we went around and shared prayer concerns. And there was one woman who always shared the same concern. Month after month, she talked about a broken relationship in her life. She never said who it was. She never said what happened. But each month she talked about the pain that she felt because of this thing that had happened years and years ago.
She had apologized to this person over and over again. But the other person was completely unwilling to forgive her. There was no forgiveness, and there was no reconciliation. Again, I have no idea what happened. All I could see was the deep pain that this woman was experiencing. Each month, she shared this prayer concern with tears in her eyes. She longed for that reconciliation to take place – but it never did.
Reconciliation is kind of a rare thing. And I think sometimes it feels like we live in a world that would much rather see retribution instead of reconciliation. We care more about being right. It’s about being justified. It’s about people getting what they deserve. It’s about justice.
And if we reconcile with someone… it can sound like we are giving in. It can feel like the weak thing to do. We resist it in the name of what we think is right and just and fair… We want to make people pay for what they’ve done to us.
But I would argue that we need reconciliation now more than ever. Now, I’m not naïve. I know that reconciliation is hard, and it doesn’t always happen in this life. But when it does, man, it’s powerful!
In 1947, after World War II had ended, Corrie ten Boom traveled from her home in Holland to Germany to preach the gospel to the Germans. In this little church basement in Munich, she preached about God’s love and mercy. She talked about how the cross of Christ brought about forgiveness for all people. She said, “When we confess our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.”
When she finished preaching, a man walked up to her. He was balding and heavyset. He was wearing a gray overcoat and had a brown hat in his hands. Corrie immediately recognized him as one of the guards at Ravensbrück concentration camp where she and her sister, Betsie, had been sent. In fact, this was the camp where her sister Betsie had died.
Corrie remembered what this man had looked like in his blue uniform and visored cap with the skull and crossbones. He was one of the cruelest guards in the camp. She remembered how this man had beaten and killed so many people.
And it was clear that the man did not recognize her, but she recognized him. The man confessed to her, “I was a guard in Ravensbrück. But since that time, I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein.” And then he reached out his hand and said, “Will you forgive me?”
Now remember, Corrie had just preached about God’s forgiveness. She had just said, “When we confess our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.” And now she is confronted with actually practicing what she preached.
Corrie talks about how every bit of her wanted to lash out at this man. She wrestled with this moment for what seemed like forever. She describes how this was the most difficult thing she ever had to do. She thought to herself, “I can’t do it. I can’t forgive him.” So… She prayed silently, “Jesus, help me!” And then she was somehow able to stretch out her hand toward this man. She thought, at least I can do this.
And when she touched the man’s hand, she says that the most incredible thing happened in that moment. She felt this healing warmth flood her entire being, and tears began to form in her eyes. And she cried out the words, “I forgive you, brother! With all my heart!”
Corrie later said that she had never known God’s love so intensely as she did in that moment. It was in that moment of reconciliation where she felt God’s love in the most powerful way.[i]
And ultimately, she found healing in her own life because of this experience. She was able to experience God’s love in a powerful new way simply by forgiving someone else.
I think one of the most amazing things about this story is that, not only was Corrie able to forgive this man who had done all of these horrible things… but she was even able to call him, “brother.” She was able to forgive him – but there was also a reconciliation that took place – they were both reconciled to God and one another as God’s children – as a brother and sister in Christ.
It's an incredible story, but it illustrates the reconciliation that we find in Christ. Not only does Jesus forgive us – but he reconciles with us. Which means that we are brought fully back into a right relationship with God. We serve a God who offers us reconciliation – even though we don’t deserve it. We serve a God who extends a hand to us when we have done nothing to earn it. Reconciliation is not about what we deserve… and that’s the whole point. We DON’T deserve it. But God has chosen to reconcile with us anyway.
Paul tells us that – because of Jesus – we are a new creation. We are made new. We are given the opportunity to see differently – to see other people differently. And the hope is that we can get to a point in our lives where see one another the way that God sees us.
I once heard someone say, “Reconciliation is something bigger than just people who hate each other who become friends. It represents the heart of God.”
The hope is that we can move from seeing this person that gets on our nerves, who we can’t stand, that we hate, who is our enemy, and we get to see them the way God sees them. We can look at them and say, “You’re a real person. You have a mother. You have a father. You were once a baby who was born into this world. You were made in the image of God. You are Beautiful. You are someone that Jesus died for. You are someone that Jesus loves.”
This even includes the people who seem the least redeemable and the most deplorable. This includes the people who seem the most unlovable. Because God wants to reconcile with us all – and we all have a role to play in bringing about this reconciliation.
The theologian Henri Nouwen suggests that we, as human beings, were born to be a people of reconciliation. He says that we are all sent here, just for the short time that we have been given on this earth, to discover and believe that we are beloved children of God – and to share that knowledge with others. He writes:
“You are sent into this world to believe in yourself as God’s chosen one and then to help your brothers and sisters know that they are also Beloved Sons and Daughters of God who belong together.
You’re sent into this world to be a people of reconciliation. You are sent to heal, to break down the walls between you and your neighbors, locally, nationally, and globally.
Before all distinctions, the separations, and the walls built on foundations of fear, there was a unity in the mind and heart of God. Out of that unity, you are sent into this world for a little while to claim that you and every other human being belongs to the same God of Love who lives from eternity to eternity.”[ii]
Henri Nouwen tells us that we all have a job to do. We are to be a people of reconciliation; To heal and break down walls between our neighbors – locally, nationally, and globally.
So, let’s pause for a minute and ask ourselves a question… How are we doing with that? How are we doing with being a people of reconciliation? How are we doing with breaking down walls between our neighbors? If you’re like me, some days I live into this well. Other days… not so much. But how can we get to that point where we see one another as a brother and sister in Christ? How can we see one another the way God sees us?
This is something that Jesus modeled for us. When Jesus was suffering on the cross, he looked out among his tormenters – those who were actively killing him – and Jesus prayed to God, saying: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” Luke 23:34 (NRSVUE).
Even in his darkest and most difficult moment – when he was faced with the shadow of death and hanging on the cross – Jesus was still striving toward reconciliation with us. He offers no words of retribution… only words of reconciliation. Jesus forgives us for our worst sins, our worst failures, and our worst mistakes. And not only that, but Jesus also embraces us fully and still longs to have a relationship with us.
Jesus is able to offer reconciliation in the most powerful way. Jesus forgives the very people who are actively killing him. And by doing that, Jesus takes away our excuses, our justifications, and our explanations for not wanting to offer forgiveness and peace to others. We have no excuses for not forgiving our neighbors. Jesus pushes us toward that hard and difficult work of reconciliation. Corrie ten Boom did it. Jesus did it. And so can we.
But we can’t do it alone!
It’s only because of God’s love and reconciliation that we can be forgiven. It’s only because of God that we can find life eternal through the promise of the resurrection. And it’s only because of God that we can find reconciliation with one another.
We need God’s grace in our lives. I’m reminded of the most famous, and probably over-quoted, Scripture of all time. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” John 3:16 (NIV).
In the season of Lent, we are invited to embrace our humanity, to confront our guilt, and to seek repentance from our sin. And Jesus offers reconciliation for those who believe. We will not perish but have eternal life. Out of the ashes, we are made into a new creation. Out of the ashes we find reconciliation – and life eternal. We are reconciled with the God of Love who lives from eternity to eternity. And we are reconciled with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
There’s an old hymn that my home church would often sing at the end of our worship services. It was after the closing prayer, right before everyone would leave to go home or go eat at a restaurant. It was the last thing that we would do together, as a church in worship.
Together, we would stand and sing these words:
“Bind us together, Lord. Bind us together. With cords that cannot be broken. Bind us together, Lord. Bind us together, Lord. Bind us together in Love.”
May it be so…
Let us Pray: O Lord, today we begin a new season – a new time of preparation. As we enter these 40 days of Lent, we ask that you might work in our hearts and minds, molding us and shaping us into the people that you would have us be. May we lean into our humanness and brokenness, but may we also accept the forgiveness and reconciliation that is offered to us through your son, Jesus Christ – who came in the flesh to be among us. Through this example, may we be agents of reconciliation to one another, healing relationships and fostering peace. For we ask all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
NOTES:
[i]. Corrie ten Boom, “Guideposts Classics: Corrie Ten Boom on Forgiveness,” Guideposts, accessed January 30, 2025, https://guideposts.org/positive-living/guideposts-classics-corrie-ten-boom-forgiveness/.
[ii]. Henri J. M. Nouwen, You Are the Beloved (New York, NY: The Crown Publishing Group, 2017), 395.
