Skip to main content

Christ Our Mediator

"Christ above me, Christ beside me, Christ within me ever guiding, Christ behind me, Christ before, Christ my love, my life, my Lord." - Hymn by John Chisum

What does it mean that Christ is our mediator? We often talk about how because of what Christ has done for us we now have direct access to the Father, but that isn't what the Bible says. We have access to the Father as his children in the Spirit through Christ. We pray in Jesus' name, after all.

We know that Christ is our mediator. The Bible does say that plainly, such as in 1 Timothy 2:5, but this is an aspect of who Christ is and what he does that I think we neglect in our theology and lives. We don't like having to go through someone else for anything, especially the most important things. We Americans prefer to do it ourselves.

The very concept of mediation is something we aren't a fan of. Couples struggling with their relationship are often resistant to see a marriage counselor or therapist, aka a mediator. We often prefer to settle things on our own instead of resorting to the courts (at least some of us do). We often treat people who try to mediate our problems with others as sticking their nose where it doesn't belong and getting into our personal business.

That's exactly right though. A mediator gets in the middle of the mess and sorts things out. In order to properly mediate a dispute the mediator needs to know the full extent of what is going on. Otherwise they won't be able to effectively solve the crisis.

Jesus is our mediator. He entered into our mess in order to resolve the conflict we had with God and he demands nothing less than all of us, personal business included. In this particular dispute there is only one guilty party, us. The Father is who has always been and shall always be: perfect, holy, all-loving, and good. He never turned his back on us and never wronged us.

We need Jesus to mediate our lives, every ounce of it. As Christians we are baptized into Christ, effectively becoming surrounded by him. We shouldn't be able to look at God, each other, or the world without having our actions, thoughts, and words shaped by Jesus our mediator. 

Christians are likewise called to be mediators in the world. The primary way we do that is through prayer. We pray for the world that they may know God. We pray for our leaders that they may rule wisely. We, the people of God in Christ, stand at the intersection of the world and the Kingdom of God, and as participants in Christ we are called to mediate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Augustine of Hippo: Historical Friday

We pause our overview of the history of Christianity to talk about an extremely influential figure, whether we realize it or not. Augustine of Hippo, so called because he lived in the town of Hippo Regius, has had a tremendous amount of influence on Christianity in the western world. Many of the theological conversations we have in our churches today have been directly shaped by this man. Many of the terms and ideas we throw around originated with Augustine.  Today we are going to look at SOME of the ideas that Augustine has shaped. In reality this man has touched in some way or another every aspect of Christian thought. If I had to choose the most influential people on Christianity outside of Jesus and the Apostles, Augustine might very well be number one alongside Martin Luther. Before we get into the theological ideas, a brief biography is in order. Brief Biography Augustine's story is actually very interesting, one I cannot hope to do justice here. If you are intereste...
Post a Comment
Read more

Justice

Our view of justice is narrow and limited. Typically when we, as Christians, talk about justice we are really only referring to punishing wrongdoers for their crimes. While that is certainly a part of justice that isn't the only thing. In the Bible justice consists of much more. Consider the book of Amos, one of the minor prophets and therefore a book that most Christians barely touch. Amos is announcing judgment against the nation of Israel for their infidelity to their covenant with God. What do you think is the most repeated indictment against Israel? Interestingly it's not idolatry, sexual immorality, or war although these things are mentioned. The primary sin of in Amos is Israel's neglect of the poor and their oppression of the needy. Over and over again Amos declares that judgment is coming to Israel because of their treatment of those less fortunate. The poor are trampled and the needy are crushed. There is no justice in the land. Biblical justice includes both crim...
Post a Comment
Read more

Be Kind

This last Sunday I was asked to preach and I struggled for a while with what to preach on. It's always difficult when you are filling in and everyone else knows you are filling in. You don't want to overlap too much with the current sermon series, but you also don't want your topic to be so unrelated to what's been going on that it has no impact.  I found inspiration simply from scrolling on Facebook. People, and it seems especially Christians, are mean.  Now of course not all Christians are rude and combative, but there are a shocking number who are. We argue in Facebook comments, send hateful messages, and generally act just like the world. This extends beyond the realm of social media and into our day-to-day interactions with so many. The Sunday lunch crowd at restaurants is infamously the worst tipping and most disrespectful, and these are mostly Christians who have just come from church. We need to be kind. Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit, but it is one we often ...
Post a Comment
Read more