Friends Again

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

This is one of my favorite passages in Scripture, and one I think we all can relate to. Relationship and reconciliation--concepts so central in our lives.

We may well remember times in the past, how in some argument with a sibling over chores or trespassing on our side of the room or something that was said, we ended up in a fight. Finally, when separated by our parents, our only communication was stony glares from across the room. The relationship was broken. I still remember how hard it was for me to say I was sorry: I would rather sit in the corner for the longest time, rather than say those painful words—“I’m sorry”—that always seemed to stick in my throat. I’d rather sit and stew than go and admit I was wrong and fix the relationship with my brother or sister.

Hopefully as we grow older we are faster to admit our fault and say we’re sorry. But we may also just grow to be better at hiding and avoiding broken relationships with God and others rather than truly seeking reconciliation.  

This passage in 2 Corinthians speaks about relationships that have been broken and are being fixed. And it’s a powerful affirmation of what God has done to fix these broken relationships.

As a background of sorts, it’s as if we, as God’s children, had spit in His face, packed our belongings, and left home for good. We had broken our relationship with Him. We rejected our Father, and so we rightly deserve only punishment. And God was completely in the right; He hadn’t done anything wrong.

But then the picture changes with our passage here. God Himself has taken the initiative to come to us and make things right! When we had our backs to Him, God provided for us to be His friends again. In fact, more than just excusing what we had done, His own Son bore the punishment for our sin. Wow.

In the Corinthian church, there had been problems within the congregation caused by blatant sins that were not confronted, divisions probably related to social class differences, and also words leveled against Paul and “his” gospel. But by the time of this letter of 2 Corinthians, Paul had received the good news that there had been a turn-around in the church. After his earlier confrontation, now the Corinthians seemed genuinely sorry for what they had done. Now we hear Paul’s words as he speaks of reconciliation and defends his own work as a Christian. It seems that God’s initiative and action in Christ is the foundation for all Paul does.

I think Today’s English Version helps us understand what’s going on here. We read, “All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us -the task of making others his friends also.” (v. 18)

We’ll spend some time looking at what all this means for us and others. As we dive into this some more, we notice that this has both a vertical and horizontal dimension to it, and that it’s both a message for us to receive, and for us to share with others.

Reconciliation that is Vertical

This first has a vertical dimension to it. Verse 16: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ...” Returning to our earlier image, even though we are the ones sitting in time-out, enemies with God, God is the one who came to us to make things right.

So somehow God allowed us to be changed from enemies into friends. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them...” But how did He do this? “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” So Jesus took all the weight of our own rebellion upon Himself. In Isaiah 53, we read “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Jesus was the only obedient child in right relationship with our Father, but He took the punishment for every lustful thought, every rejection of God’s authority and love, every time we worried instead of trusting, every time we looked down on another Christian, every time we failed to love. So in what Jesus did, God paved the way back home for us, making us His friends again.

So God has done this, but reconciliation takes two people. 

We must be willing to say we’re sorry, and then simply accept what God has done. He has put away His just anger, and Christ bore it in our place. When we belong to Christ, we are now His friends, in right relationship with Him again. And in relationship with Him, we are part of a new reality, a new creation—so that we can live for Him instead of for ourselves. Do we believe this?

Reconciliation that is Horizontal

This new reality affects everything. This restored relationship with our God (the vertical dimension of being reconciled) is the basis for restored relationships with one another (the horizontal dimension). God has taken the initiative to bring us back into right relationship with Himself. He’s fixed the relationship at a great cost to Himself. No more divisions in Christ.

If we are close friends with someone, then in some sense we can’t be bitter enemies with their husband or wife, or their children. When God makes us into His friends, it’s even more expansive. We are now part of something so much bigger than ourselves. God has bound us to Himself in friendship, and so we are also bound to all God’s friends.

Recently I’ve been reading a book by a Jesuit priest, called Tattoos on the Heart. He works in Los Angeles with gang members, and tells stories of the transformation he has seen in their lives. In the mission, we see snapshots of men who were in rival gangs, working in a bakery alongside one another. They have become part of something new, something so much bigger than the rivalries and blood feuds that once defined their lives.

I’m sure many of us can think of other relationships that need reconciliation, even closer to home. Disagreements over money or marriage choices or personality or church or lifestyle. We may think of someone who is seen as the “black sheep” in our biological family or our church family, or someone we harbor a grudge against, or more subtly, from whom we destructively distance ourselves.

But what we read here—that God makes us His friends in Jesus—melts any basis for harbored grudges between fellow believers. God’s friends are to be our friends. This doesn’t mean that we pretend there are no differences between us. This also doesn’t mean that working towards reconciliation will always bring a good relationship—that takes both people. We can’t control how others will respond, but we can take extend ourselves in expressing the reconciliation that God has already accomplished. We don’t all become the same, but we recognize our common ground in Christ. And it also means that we should actively be seeking reconciliation, relying on the power of the Holy Spirit going with us.

This may begin on a small scale, closest to home. Who is one individual we may we need to call today, right now, to seek reconciliation? Whether or not they reciprocate, we are to extend ourselves, because of what God has done for and in us.

It’s difficult to see the divisions that exist within the Church across the world. But I think through our passage today, we can be encouraged in continuing to seek reconciliation and healing (whatever that looks like), on the basis of the reconciliation that God has already provided. Our Father—the Father of all believers in all congregations—has taken the gracious initiative to make us His friends in Christ. That is the common ground between all Christians. So even if there are breaks within the Church, there still remains a deeper unity that never goes away, rooted in Christ. So in whatever ways are needed, I think we can be encouraged in continuing to extend ourselves in seeking whatever reconciliation we can, as far as it is up to us. We can’t control the result. And this won’t mean we will all look the same at the end of the day. But acknowledging differences, we stand on a greater common ground if we stand in Jesus Christ.

Reconciliation that We Must Receive

Over the next few weeks, I will be doing a series of sermons on texts in Matthew. We will focus first on the theme of what it means to be called to follow Jesus as His disciples. Then we will turn to the theme in Matthew of the church’s mission—going out into the world. Overall, we will focus on how we are gathered and going. Gathered by Christ as His disciples, and going—sent by Him.

One of the reasons I love this passage in 2 Corinthians is because it has both senses to it—both gathered and going. We ourselves are first invited and urged to receive this reconciliation God has provided in Jesus. We are called to accept God’s offer of friendship. “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...” These words of the gospel can give us daily strength and focus. This is one of the wonderful things about daily devotions after dinner: We need to be reminded daily of this good news that is our daily food and drink. So we are gathered to God in Christ.

Reconciliation that We Extend to Others

But then we are also going. We are sent by God. “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.”

Every Christian is a full-time missionary. And we are sent to share this with others, to call people to accept this offer of friendship with God through Jesus. I think this makes the idea of witnessing less scary. Our culture knows about broken relationships and sees the destructive effects of them. There are numerous examples in celebrity magazines or even in our own lives. And though this is still invasive, it’s witnessing out of love: We know our God and Father, and we want others to know the joy of a healed relationship with Him too.

This may begin close to home. Who in our life needs to hear God’s offer of friendship in Christ? Our neighbor? The friend at work at our lunch table? The check-out clerk at the grocery store?

It can be hard to share this. We fear we’ll be rejected. But even if others reject us when we share the gospel with them, it’s ok. Ultimately, witnessing is not about making friends for ourselves. It’s about seeking to lead people into friendship with their Father and their God through Jesus.

If we look back to the picture from the beginning, God provided for us to be His friends again, even when we were still sulking in the corner. And then God, our Father, asks us to go to our siblings and tell them about His love. This is the mission of the Church.

And we aren’t alone in this mission either. Apparently, among many Pentecostal Christians, there is the belief that we never witness alone—we always have God going with us. The Holy Spirit equips us to share this message with others who deeply need reconciliation with God.

Reconciliation at Angola

This past October, I spent some time visiting Angola State Penitentiary, in Louisiana, with a group from Calvin Seminary. Calvin has been sending groups there for the past couple years, to learn something of what God has been doing in this prison. We were told how this used to be the bloodiest maximum security prison in the United States—and it was actually where the movies “The Green Mile” and “Dead Man Walking” were set or filmed. Many of these men were here for life, and the barbed wire and locked gates were evidence of the effects of past broken relationships with God and others. How could they be God’s friends?

But what we saw was something I will never forget. At Angola, we joined the men for nightly worship services, and we sat in a seminary extension program classroom in the prison. We came to know men who had been overwhelmed by the gospel—and who had accepted God’s gracious call to be His friends again. These men knew their sin, but also knew their Savior.

On the last day we were there, a couple of the men stood up front and rapped a song for us, based on Philippians 2 that speaks of Jesus as Lord. The chorus saw them bowing one by one as they sang “Bow! Bow! Bow! Bow!” These men had been reconciled by the blood of Christ on the cross, and are God’s friends. 

And on top of this, some of these men even went out as missionaries to other prisons. There, in other places harder than Angola, they shared this message of the gospel with others.

Is our story really any different from theirs—from our brothers in Angola? “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...” 

God making us His friends again.