Reconciliation (Part II)

By Odon Bulamba (2 May 2003)

Let’s consider God’s attitude towards us.

When God created Adam, He found Adam good and gave him many responsibilities. God knew that one day Adam would fall into sin. He told Adam, “Be careful, don’t eat the fruit of this tree.” But one day Adam ate from this tree.

As we know, God used to visit Adam every evening and God knew that Adam had done something wrong and He said, “I’m going to see him. Although he has pierced my heart with a knife, I will go and see him. Although he hasn’t obeyed my orders – Me being his God, I am going to go and see him.” The Bible says that God left Heaven to visit Adam in the garden. And that’s the first time we can hear God saying, “Adam, Adam, where are you?” Adam hid himself. Other days they may have been able to meet without being called, but because of his wrongdoing Adam hid somewhere. And God raised His voice and said, “Adam, Adam, where are you?”

God, to whom wrong was done, still came to find Adam and He found him naked somewhere. He said, “Ah, my friend is naked. The one who is similar to me is naked. So first of all, I must cover his nakedness.” The Bible says that God made Adam wear the skin of an animal and this covered his nakedness. God didn’t say to Adam, “From now on, our friendship is over.” God didn’t say, “Because of what you have done, I’m not going to come and see you anymore.” But He asked only one question, “Who told you that you were naked?”

Instead of Adam saying that he discovered it himself, he said, “That’s the wife you gave me.” He is asked why he is naked and responds by saying that it was the wife God gave him. And the wife said, “But it was the snake that tricked me.” And if the serpent could blame someone, he also would say that person tricked him.

So let us consider God’s love. We are in the likeness of God and are called Christians, meaning we walk like Christ and are Christs’ imitators. Therefore, we are also called to leave the Heavens to come on earth and meet people like Adam.

From time to time we have friends and our friends fall into situations that divide us. We were friends but following circumstances our friendship has been broken. From my side, I cannot go and kneel down before someone like Zoe and be reconciled to her because the love I had for Zoe has been turned into hatred and Zoe will also say that she can’t go and see Odon because he did something wrong. She will say, “If he needs me he can come and visit me, but I cannot go and see him.” If God would say that to Adam, how would Adam be able to see God. God knew that Adam would live in the garden but the Bible doesn’t say if Adam knew where God lived. They would only meet in the garden. If God had said, “Adam has made a mistake so I won’t go and be reconciled to him”, how would Adam have been able to see God?

As Christians we have to go and see other people who have done wrong against us. Although they have killed our parents and done wrong things, if they were our friends in the past, we have to act like God and go and reconcile with them. My friend, if there has been a problem in the past between you and me, forgive me and let’s be reconciled.

God himself taught us something – we cannot live without peace. He has even asked us to live in peace with everyone and how could you live in peace with everybody if you are not reconciled with everybody? I would say that reconciliation is the root of the major principle that makes us to live in peace with everyone. Because if you don’t become reconciled with everyone; you will never have peace. If you say that you are not able to lower yourself to that stage, you must accept that you will live without peace in your life.

Jesus himself accepted to be humiliated to a level the world itself cannot accept. God accepted to be humiliated in everything we do. How many times as Christians do we make mistakes and sin against God and we humiliate God’s name? And people around us observing our mistakes will not remember we are human beings but will say it was a Christian who did it. “Ah, you know there is a Christian who did this somewhere!” The name of the person won’t be mentioned, but the name of the whole church of Christ will be blamed. But God keeps tolerating and comes by our side to talk to us.