In a recent post my friend Matt wrote about reconciliation in Christ. Hey used a diagram which placed Christ at the center with four connecting objects(the individual, the community, the creator God and the creation): the four objects expressing how some understand the nature of redemption. I would agree, and to reflect I wrote some things that express my thoughts about each.
1) Individual: I remembered the ash, bitterness and endless disenchantment that used to be my life. I considered what could have become of me without Christ's intervention. I realize that the individual connected to Christ has enormous potential to engage life. Christ called it the kingdom of heaven. Even the glimpses are enough to convince me that only life in Christ can truly be called life at all.
2) Community: Christ was with people most of the time. He taught them about the Kingdom, he trusted them, and he even asked them to be there for him. Through Christ our communities can take all of the potential of the individual and amplify it. It can radiate in a way that the world neither experiences nor understands...and by encountering it people are welcomed to join it. Through it perspective and substance radically change beyond our understanding of the word "good."
3) Creator (the Father or God) : I don't know where to begin or even what to say once I have. Christ knew the Father intimately and used parables to convey his nature. There was and still mystery, even danger. Jews will not even speak the name, leaving a blank _____, a pause out of reverence. I'm beginning to think that we have much to learn, actually, I know we do.
4) Creation (our planet): Not many of us were taught as children the holistic nature of the Kingdom. We were given an understanding limited to just the individual and Christ in many cases. But what about the redemption of all things? What about the feeling I get when I escape our society and embrace what so many others have felt? And what, to strike closer to home, do we do with the creator's command to Adam to "subdue and conquer the earth and everything in it"? What an enormous responsibility. I think that that responsibility extends to us...in all things, and in all things it includes the requirement to "rule and subdue" correctly. With boldness, care, concern and divorced from abuse. I'll conclude by relating something I recently heard: that if human society suddenly ceased to exist hardly a generation would pass before nature reclaimed everything: our cities, our creations.
So I recently saw an interstate rest stop that had been recently closed. In it's derelict state you could easily see grass breaking through the concrete...reclaiming.
