RECONCILIATION TO BRING PEACE
Introduction
Reconciliation also calls for repentance and forgiveness. In evidently, when calling for reconciliation, one party or both might have been injured or hurt and a need for saying sorry to oneself or the other is paramount. Repentance is a life long process which starts with a definite point of metanoia – change. At that point, an emphatic decision say ‘NO’ to this kind of life and ‘YES’ to the future kind of life. As I have state, repentance is an act (metanoia) and a process (on-going) read Jer 7:3’ 9-10, 2 Sam 12:cf. Ps.51, Acts9:1-18, Gal 1:12-27). It is a process because one has to go back to that original state of innocence (Lk 15:11-32, Jer 3:12-14). Forgiveness demands acceptance of the one who has come to repent. ‘To err is human, to forgive is divine’. Forgiveness refers to the removal of obstacles that lie in the way of intimate union with God and others.
Biblical undertones of reconciliation
In our Christian sense, reconciliation appears as one of a constellation of linked terms: forgiveness, atonement, justification, reconciliation, sanctification, redemption, liberation, healing, purification, regeneration, and so on. Reading from the Judges 19:3 talks of a Levite who became angry with his concubine and went to talk to her ‘reconcile her to himself’. This implies causing someone to return (Cf. 1 Sam 29:4). Reconciliation means a change from anger, hostility, or alienation to love, friendship, or intimacy; feelings may accompany that change, but they are not essential (see Matt 5:23-24; I Cor 7:11). In the Pauline discources on reconciliation, he considers God to be the initiator of the process of reconciliation. In 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 God reconciles us to God’s own self in and through Christ by not holding our sins against us. In Romans 5:10-11 Christ’s death is the means whereby God destroys the hostility. In Colossians 1:20-22 Christ’s death is the means whereby peace is made, although there are two ambiguities: whether it is God or Christ who acts and whether the peace is between God and creatures, among creatures, or (probably) both. Ephesians 2:11-16 is clear – Christ, by his death, restores friendship with God by breaking down the walls of separation among people, with the Jew-Gentile distinction, so radically divisive for the early Church, the archetype of how change takes place and what we are freed from.
Call for Reconciliation
Reconciliation is called for both horizontally that is on human level and vertically that is with the Divine. We break our common relationships in our personal lives both at human level and divine level. Factors leading to this can be our personal conflicts (Rom 7:14-15), sin (Is 29:13, Ps 51:12, Ps 35:1-5, Rom 5:12-29).We can reconcile with friends by firstly forgiving acceptance, talking it over or even nurturing new relationships.
love
Simply defined, to reconcile is to ‘restore to union and friendship after estrangement’ or to ‘bring to agreement’. Reconciliation describes two related situations, bound together by a move from enmity to friendship. In one situation, reconciliation restores a prior relationship, as when two family members or friends have a falling out and then re-establish the relationship. In the worst case, the enmity severs all communication and the individuals have nothing to do with each other; less severe is the case where only perfunctory communication occurs. In the other related situation, reconciliation refers to the creation of a relationship between enemies, where the enemies become friends, though they may never have had friendly contact before.
Biblical undertones of reconciliation
In our Christian sense, reconciliation appears as one of a constellation of linked terms: forgiveness, atonement, justification, reconciliation, sanctification, redemption, liberation, healing, purification, regeneration, and so on. Reading from the Judges 19:3 talks of a Levite who became angry with his concubine and went to talk to her ‘reconcile her to himself’. This implies causing someone to return (Cf. 1 Sam 29:4). Reconciliation means a change from anger, hostility, or alienation to love, friendship, or intimacy; feelings may accompany that change, but they are not essential (see Matt 5:23-24; I Cor 7:11). In the Pauline discources on reconciliation, he considers God to be the initiator of the process of reconciliation. In 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 God reconciles us to God’s own self in and through Christ by not holding our sins against us. In Romans 5:10-11 Christ’s death is the means whereby God destroys the hostility. In Colossians 1:20-22 Christ’s death is the means whereby peace is made, although there are two ambiguities: whether it is God or Christ who acts and whether the peace is between God and creatures, among creatures, or (probably) both. Ephesians 2:11-16 is clear – Christ, by his death, restores friendship with God by breaking down the walls of separation among people, with the Jew-Gentile distinction, so radically divisive for the early Church, the archetype of how change takes place and what we are freed from.
Call for Reconciliation
Reconciliation is called for both horizontally that is on human level and vertically that is with the Divine. We break our common relationships in our personal lives both at human level and divine level. Factors leading to this can be our personal conflicts (Rom 7:14-15), sin (Is 29:13, Ps 51:12, Ps 35:1-5, Rom 5:12-29).We can reconcile with friends by firstly forgiving acceptance, talking it over or even nurturing new relationships.
love