Reconciliation

Well, this was supposed to have been Wednesday's posting, but death by head cold overcame me for the week!  I guess if children can be diseased vermin, so can grandchildren!  But, this afternoon I am finally on the mend.

So, in my last post I mentioned the importance of reconciliation several times while discussing forgiveness, why?  Because the entire point of our forgiving is to reconcile with one another.

Hmmmm, and that is certainly what this weekend is about.

First off, let us kill the Roman Catholic understanding that his is "Good Friday", because Jesus died on the cross for me.  Face palm, everyone of you believing that.

Please look up and read the basis of the Abrahamic Covenant.  Genesis 15:
⁹ So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
¹⁰ Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. ¹¹ Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
¹⁷ When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi^[e] of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, ²⁰ Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, ²¹ Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

The concept is one Abram would have understood.  God is making a Mesopotamia covenant with him, if God fails, He will have to bare the burden of the sacrifice just made.  If Abram fails, or his descendants fails, the humans will have to bare the burden of the sacrifice.  In other words, be butchered.

But, God did not call upon the remains of Judah to pay any price for their disobedience, God paid their price as well for the sacrifice.  God had to become flesh to be killed, He did so as Jesus.  God had to die, as did Jesus.  Of course, it is to our (gentile) delight that He was risen from the grave, for now death had been conquered, for all man, inclusively!

Did Jesus die for your (gentile) sins?  In a round about way but that would be not what the crucifixion was about.
Did Jesus die for my sins?  Well, my female ancestor line is Hebrew, on my mother's side.  So yes, Jesus paid for the price of my ancestor's rebellion to God and sin.

And just like all man, you and I are covered by the Blood Jesus shed for our sin.  Thank heavens!  I would not want to face God with my track record before I became a Christian.  Okay, post-Christian has not been that shining either.....

So, Jesus reconciled the Jew to God.  Jesus by extension, reconciled all of mankind to God, our creator.

In like fashion reconciliation was  been important between all Christian believers.  We are to reconcile with those of our faith and then be at peace with all others.

So, just as I sought to reconcile with my friend, just as I seek to reconcile with my sister gone astray and my estranged daughter, so each of us is required to do so.  In fact we are told to not even partake of communion if we have not reconciled with someone we hold something against.  That is how important this is to God.  So, I stand, waiting with a heart open (much against my better judgement) to welcome my sister and daughter back.  Because God commands this of them.  I, as the wronged party here, get to wait and even make offers of peace, but it is something they must do.  Luckily, God never told us to forget how we got played.....  So, it will be interesting to ever see happen, but He is the one whom has to make them miserable enough to be forced into doing so.  Yeah, I can be flippant now but I know I will be in tears when this happens.

So, like me you need to release your unforgiveness, like me you either get to present reconciliation or to await it from those whom wronged you.  Like me you may wait a long time, but if you have done all you can do, then you get to wait and pray for them to catch up.

Now to address my American readers, if unforgiveness is something that is lodged in your heart.  Just becaue you have carried a burden of hate and/or unforgiveness for "Bob", does not mean that you confront "Bob" and lay it all out to him, if he is unaware of what was in your heart.  Now if it was actions, that is something else, you need to ask his forgiveness, but I can not begin to tell you how many times I hear the repeated story at how someone went to "Bob", whom was clueless as to the situation, and then dumped all over them with this new truth.  "Bob", of course, is offended and will never talk to you ever again - and you wonder why.  Hello!  And, I hear this all of the time from Americans with an ultra-wild sense of zeal for disclosing what has never been known and wondering at why they then get rejected.

So, if they know by gossip or rumors, or your own actions towards them, by all means approach them and humble yourself.  Otherwise, shut up.  Go to those you spread gossip or rumors to and take it back.  And, shut up.  If you disagree take some basic psychology and human communication classes first to understand how humans think and deal with one another, then complain to me.