Annie
Scriptures: Luke 15:11-31 Colossians 1:19-23
2 Corinthians 5:20 Romans 5:1-11
When I was a child, playing in the street was normal. Hopscotch, skipping, tag. No soft play areas for us. We were town kids, our playground was the tarmacadam with its vicious pointy bits of gravel. If you tripped and fell (which I often did) the result was always the same. Enduring the inevitable washdown with tear-inducing, stinging Dettol, followed by the torture of tweezers removing every painfully embedded, minute piece of grit, before being bandaged and allowed back outside to do it all over again. I remember being told, oh so often, that if there was even one tiny piece of grit left, the wound wouldn’t heal or it would “go septic”. If we didn’t go straight home and allow the painful process to be played out, we were in great big trouble.
Why am I recalling this so vividly? There is no point in trying to fix the wound without removing every vestige of the cause. There was no point in trying to hide the injury, the consequences were even worse, and we knew it. Do you know what never ceased to amaze me? When all the grit and dirt was removed, the flesh and skin began to knit together, restored and renewed, back to the way it was always meant to be.
In Luke 15 we read the parable Jesus told of the Father who stood faithfully waiting and watching for his son to make his weary, guilt and shame filled way home. And, when this father saw his son a long way off, he picked up his skirt and ran to meet him, and hugged him as if he would never let go again. This scene wonderfully portrays the yearning heart of the father who longed to reconcile with his wayward son, yet could do nothing to help until the son realised and acknowledged that he needed to come home. Without the cause of the separation being removed, there could not be real reconciliation. The son’s greed, his lack of gratitude, his selfishness and his guilt and shame, all had to be wiped out. Only then could he know the love and forgiveness that had always been waiting for him.
There is an almighty mountain between us and our Father God. A mountain that only exists because we have all sinned. A mountain built on greed, selfishness, total lack of gratitude, soul destroying guilt and heart breaking shame. Yet, as the Blood of Christ flowed down the hill at Calvary, that mountain was shattered, opening the way for us to be reconciled to God, but only through Christ.
Paul tells us in his letter to the Colossians: “19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.”
God was “pleased” to sacrifice His Son, to allow His precious Blood to bring the peace that was essential so that we could be reconciled to Him.
Shalom – “to destroy the authority that is attached to chaos”. This is the peace that has to rule in our lives so that we can with boldness and utter thankfulness be reconciled to our Father. The authority of the chaos of sin must be destroyed, and only the sacrifice of the Son of God could achieve this.
Just as every last tiny piece of grit had to go, no matter how painful it was, in order for my grazed knees and elbows to heal, so must every vestige of sin be washed away by the Blood of Christ for my reconciliation with my Abba Father to be fulfilled.
What can wash away my sin Nothing but the Blood of Jesus
Prayer: Abba Father, You stand, faithfully waiting for each one to come home, calling out Your delight, Your love, in the words of welcome as You wrap us in Your Arms hugging and holding us, never letting go. How can we ever express the gratitude, the awe, the absolute amazement that You should do this, but You did. Oh Abba, thank You, thank you Amen