Ambassadors For Christ

A Reflection on the Second Reading for March 27th, 2022:
Fourth Sunday of Lent

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2 Corinthians
5.17-21

Brothers and sisters: If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God.
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Some days, it’s hard to get past everything we’ve lost. An empty seat at the table. A relationship lost in the fray of what felt like a life or death argument. A family member who has deeply wounded us, taking in those cruel moments not only our joy, but also what our relationship should have been. A friend who moved away, and a connection that’s a little less strong whenever we meet. Along our journey, do we not sometimes stumble on the road of our lives, sometimes in little potholes and too often in the gaping crevasse where our will and desire weren’t enough to keep mended all that had to break?


What does Christ offer those of us broken down on the side of a road that has become impassable? He doesn’t simply pick us up and skip us over those rough patches. Nor does He ask us to keep pushing through so hard that we wreck ourselves on the broken road. Rather, He makes our road into something new! That doesn’t mean that He takes our losses and erases them. He patches them, leaving all the good of those moments in there, but takes away the sting. He patches up our wounds from where we stumbled. He reconciles our hearts to Him and forgives us our failings.


Where does that leave us with those people who have wounded us, who caused those painful breaks on our journey? The challenging call as Christians is that we can’t keep the forgiveness and reconciliation to ourselves. It’s a gift that’s meant to be shared. We have an opportunity to reassess those relationships that are strained and broken to see where we were wounded but also where we wounded others. With the grace of Christ, there is a path towards reconciliation.


In those relationships where the person who wounded us destroyed the chance of a return to the original relationship, we are still invited to reconciliation. But what does that look like? In my experience, it takes God-given, God-driven forgiveness — even for those who refuse to accept their responsibility. Like grace itself, forgiveness given without hope of a return to right relationship is a free gift. What we gain by giving it is a freedom, an easing of our burden, because unforgiveness is a poison that only hurts us, and not the person who wounded us. Where we can give that forgiveness, but cannot safely repair the relationship, our best recourse is prayer for the soul of that person. Prayers that the Holy Spirit would speak to their hearts and bring about a great conversion. God has made saints out of some of the greatest sinners.

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Through our desire to give forgiveness and seek forgiveness, we can be ambassadors for Christ. What better testimony can there be to the world than to be a healed person, getting back onto the lifelong marathon that is our earthly journey? To do that in a way that mends the wounds of others and witnesses to the glory of God — can there be any better journey?




Stephanie Potter

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