Building the peace of Christ in our divided and broken world
What is broken?
Genesis 1 & 2
Genesis 3.8 Exodus 3.6 Isaiah 6.5
Genesis 3.16, Genesis Genesis Samuel 11 2 Samuel
Genesis
‘I do not do the good I want to do but the evil I do not want to’ Romans 8.19.
What God created at peace was broken: every aspect of human experience tainted by the degeneration of difference into division.
What would it look like if it wasn’t broken?
Isaiah Micah 4.2-3
Sālôm: ‘fullness of life and wholeness in all areas of life: material, familial, societal and religion’ Timothy Ashley ‘The Book of Numbers’ p153
Revelation 22.4 Revelation 21.2 Isaiah 62.5.
Revelation
Ezekiel Revelation 22.2
Isaiah 26 Ezekiel 36.26
What has been done about it?
The Christian faith ‘absolutely depends on an unimaginable crossing of frontiers, the barriers between God and despairing, Godless men and women’ Rowan Williams ‘The Truce of God’ p31
Matthew 5.9 John Luke
Ephesians 2 2 Corinthians 5.19 Matthew 27.45
Christ’s full embrace of the human condition, including its separation from God, is paradoxically what brings reconciliation. His self- giving love in action created a bridge across all that divides us and God.
Ephesians 2 2 Corinthians 5.19 Matthew 27.45
1 Corinthians 15 “God’s own future … has burst into the present” NT Wright, ‘Paul: Fresh Perspectives’ p135
What are we, the church, to do?
‘Believers in that future given by God are able to sing and to dance, to heal and to forgive’ Walter Brueggemann ‘The Prophetic Imagination’ p
Church should act as ‘Sign, foretaste and instrument’ of the kingdom of God Lesslie Newbiggin in ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you’
We have caught the vision splendid Of a world which is to be, When the pardoning love of Jesus Freely flows from sea to sea, When all men from strife and anger, Greed and selfishness are free, When the nations live together In sweet peace and harmony. Doris Rendell The Salvation Army Songbook 833
We would help to build the city Of our God, so wondrous fair; Give our time, bring all our talents, And each gift of beauty rare, Powers of mind, and strength of purpose, Days of labour, nights of strain, That God's will may be accomplished, O'er the kingdoms he shall reign. Doris Rendell. The Salvation Army Songbook 833.
Building the peace of Christ in our divided and broken world