Reconciliation doesn't come easy. The three R's of repentance, restitution, reconciliation, followed by forgiveness is a long and winding road. Most of us have had a few relationships that made it through the steps of repentance and the initial steps of forgiveness but rarely do we move toward restitution and most certainly we do not get to the place of reconciliation.
Reconciliation implies that everything is new. "Behold all things have become new." God's promise of forgetting our sins and removing our sins "as far as the East is from the West" doesn't seem right somehow. We understand how to say were sorry but we have a harder time trusting our trepassing neighbor again. "I forgive you but I don't trust you and I will never work with you again," is the normal approach to forgiveness in a society that avoids all pain and seeks only comfort at all price.
To find reconciliation as a way of following Christ may mean that many will have to go to the cross without others understanding, without popularity, without everything working out okay, without selling numerous books, without being popular again, without having a happy human ending. Jesus did say, "If you want to be my disciple, you must take up your cross and follow me." Reconciliation is tough stuff. Jon Sharpe
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